Penguins, Penguins, and More Penguins

It was all about those arctic birds in tuxedos this week! 

If you haven't read "365 Penguins" by Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet you need to.

It's about a long suffering family who has a penguin mailed to them every day for a whole year.  The kids love it because of how silly the concept is.  It has fantastic math links, as well as having illustrations in blue and orange complementary colors.  There's also a great twist ending that you'll have to read for yourself.

I use this book in several different grades, tweaking the project for the skills of the grade level I'm working with.  The following pictures are all from kindergarten.  It's a basic building skills lesson - cutting and gluing shapes.  The first day we read the book, and painted our iceberg backgrounds.  Second day was just drawing shapes, cutting shapes and gluing shapes.

I love the expression on this one!

This one came out a little Picasso-ish.

This boy made his penguin sliding down the iceberg on his back

 Also, in first grade we finished the tinted penguins I told you about in this post: What's a Penguin to Think when he turns pink?

I had them make the base parts of the body with the tinted papers they made during the first session.  Then I turned them loose in the scrap box to get the colors they would need for the eyes, beak, belly and feet.  One first grade has already finished.  Tomorrow the other first grade will finish theirs.  I'll post pics of those after tomorrow's class.

Since it Valentine's Day is close, this student decided to make her penguin's belly a heart.

I'm working on the a bulletin board right now for our misfit colored penguins.  Here's a glimpse of it:

Once I get the other first grade's work up I'll trim the paper on our "iceberg" down.  They just look so darn cute!