Mrs. Ehle's Kindergarten Connections: It's THROW-BACK-THURSDAY... Penguin Style!

Thursday, February 6, 2014

It's THROW-BACK-THURSDAY... Penguin Style!

I'm linking up with Primary Possibilities for a new Throw Back Thursday linky!

Our freezing cold temperatures have been the perfect backdrop for all of our polar animal studies these past few weeks...

So I thought, why not "re-share" some of my polar penguin resources!

So here ya' go.... "Flashin' back" to last year's penguin post..... GO!

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Happy Friday! Boy, do I mean that!

This week seemed incredibly L----O----N----G. On top of that...my little kinder-cherubs were unsusually "spirited" today. (I'm sure you know what I mean!) I'm telling you... I came home, sat down for "a second" (which I sincerely RARELY do).... and 15 minutes later found myself WAKING UP to a ringing phone! Ugh! I am one tired bunny tonight! However, before I hit the sack... I wanted to take a minute to share some of today's "Fun Friday" events with you! Today's "Fun Friday" theme was PENGUINS. Gotta love those waddle-y little guys!

If you do a penguin themed study in your classroom, you HAVE to show this little video to your kiddos. It's CHOCK-FULL of great information about penguins. Super engaging for little ones... and incredibly cute! (Oh and it's only a few minutes long so it holds their attention well!)

CHECK. IT. OUT.

Also... I needed a "math enrichment" activity so I whipped up this little gem. If you think you may be able to use this in your classroom, check out the preview. It's a peek at the full file.

Click on the image to go to my TPT store!

I began the afternoon with a "schema" chart. I made a chart on a large piece of chart paper. (Yep! I forgot to take a picture of it...so I re-created it with a drawing below.)

1. We charted what we already knew.... "Schema." We discussed how it's fun to use fancy-grown up words sometimes since we are SO smart! We wrote our schema ideas on post-it notes. (You will see why in a moment!)

2. We read a non-fiction, fact filled penguin book.

3. We watched the penguin video from by post below. (It's a GREAT one!)

4. We charted "NEW LEARNING" and moved any post-it notes with incorrect facts to the "OOPS!" or "Misconception" area.

5. We made these SUPER-CUTE and EASY-PEASY penguins in a step by step format. Gotta love how they all have their own "personalities!" (We ONLY made the penguins themselves on Friday. On Tuesday during Writer's Workshop we will re-read our schema-chart and write our own non-fiction stories. This picture is from last year so you can see the finished project!) This writing idea came from the wonderfully talented Deanna Jump originally! I changed it a bit...but if you are looking for additional penguin activities, check out her TPT store!

6. After our penguin art activity, we had a penguin snack! Yum! We made OCEAN ICEBERG FLOATS (blue Hawaiian Punch with scoops of vanilla ice cream) and Goldfish crackers. Did I mention that we put the Goldfish crackers on a napkin and the kiddos had to eat them like penguins....with no hands or fingers! Take a peek!

7. We ended the afternoon with a Penguin Egg Relay Race! We plopped a penguin egg on our feet and did a relay race in the gym. The kiddos had to pass the egg to their teammates. It didn't take long for the kiddos to realize what a tough job it is to be a penguin parent!