I think I have printed enough penguin activities to make a fun penguin book as we call it. I have folders that have those 3 prong thing in the middle so Katie can put the full size sheets of paper in the middle like a book and use the folder pockets for any smaller items - pengiun cards I printed out. I was amazed at how many free sites I have found to learn all about penguins and be able to print out a variety of activities. Since dd can't read yet there some lesson ideas that we had to skip over but there were many hands on type lessons we could do. One lesson idea was to have kids map out were the 17 species of penguins live on a blank world map. I thought this was a neat idea but the only problem was if dd was to write where every penguin lives she would become frustrated by all that writing especially if she makes a mistake. So instead I printed out the maps which have all the places where pengiuns live and we are going to put them in her book. This way when we are reading about penguins we can have a map ready and Katie will be able to understand better where this type of penguin lives since she needs visual aides.
I was also amazed to find out our local library doesn't have one book on penguins, they have a book on antartica but this book only briefly talks about penguins. So I went online to our library website and ordered some penguin books from other libraries through the loan program and they should be here by friday. I also ordered a few books that I found on the countries where these penguins live so I can sneak in a little world geography. Katie is most interested in Australia and New Zealand and dh said he would love to work at the science station in Antartica since he loves cold and snow (I will pass on this one).
We are also doing a science project to learn about how pengiuns stay warm in the cold oceans and especially in Antartica and a second one to show how the color of the penguins help it keep safe from predators. I also printed out some coloring sheets and an art project that shows how a penguin waddles or hops.
This interest also has spilled over to our upcoming art fair for our homeschool group. Katie has this cardboard insert from a box she got her pirate ship out of and it has a sunset and waves printed on it. The cardboard has the design printed on the back and more waves on the front piece that the ship sat on.. So Katie wants to put a penguin on the back piece on a surf board and more penguins on the front piece so it looks 3-d. On the front piece she is going to put white paper to cover the waves so it looks like the pengins are standing on ice or snow. This should be really neat project for the art fair, now we just need to get it all done by next Thursday.
