Penguins Week 1

Whew this was another busy week! First up I want to thank Kacey over at Doodle Bug Teaching. I was the winner of her valentine giveaway and I can't tell you how nice it was to recieve this game - not just the file, she actually sent me the game! It was already printed, laminated, and cut!
 
It was so nice to not have to do that myself. I really appreciate it Kacey! It left me time to create some more pocket chart stories. I received such nice feedback on the one I made, that I made a slew more! You can find them in my TPT store here. There are all different themes like Valentines, St. Patty's, Easter, Ocean, Zoo, Puppies, Ocean, etc. I've really had a lot of fun making them and my students love using them during literacy centers. True story.... my pocket chart is right by my door and my kids like to lay down while they are writing. You can kind of see the set up here (the door is immediately to the right):

Last week my assistant principal came in my room to drop off science text books and literally had to step OVER two students because they were so engaged laying there on the floor working on the pocket chart. They didn't even notice him come in and step over them! He got a good chuckle out of it!

We were pretty busy this week learning about Penguins! We used Deanna Jump's Unit which is crammed full of those cuties. We started out the week by charting what we knew about Penguins and throughout the week as we learned new things we added them on. If we found out anything we thought we knew was wrong we simply moved it to the misconceptions box.

We used several graphic organizers throughout the week to keep track of all the information we were learning. The kids loved this topic and were soaking up new info like little sponges!

We practiced labeling some more, my kids are getting really good at this!

And we started our All About Penguins Book. (click on the pictures to see better if it's too hard to read)

On Friday we had a special math lesson where we worked on fair share with goldfish. The kids loved this and especially loved eating the fish when we were done! We started out by using these large penguins and fish. We rolled the dice, counted out that many fish and split them up equally.

Then we did it on our own with goldfish.

oops that should say "split them between the two PENGUINS"

We also did the petroleum jelly/blubber glove experiment on Friday and the kids made a lot of great connections. I think examples like these really help to cement foreign concepts and make them seem real.

Something else cool we did this week..... We read "Pierre the Penguin" (awesome book!) about a Penguin at the California Academy of Science and then we logged onto their website www.calacademy.com and watched the penguins live on their webcam! We even got to see them getting fed!

We also made these adorable handprint penguins I pinned on Pinterest, but I forgot to take a pic of our so here's the one I pinned. I'll post a pic of ours next week.

Here are some of our Penguin Centers:

This read the room from Mrs. Willis was the perfect challenge for my kids. They had to write the number, color the crayon to match and sound out the word. 

I made this rhyming game, you can get it HERE The kids matched up the rhyming penguins and then drew and wrote the words. 

This game is from Growing Kinders. The kids spun the spinner, and then wrote in the letter in any available ice cube - as long as it was in ABC order! 

This is from Deanna Jump's Unit. The kids matched the pictures to the words then drew and wrote some of their matches. 

Our penguin pocket chart, you can get it HERE. 

Also from Deanna Jump. The kids sounded out the words then sorted them by real and nonsense words. They also recorded the two groups on paper. 

The Penguin who wanted to fly at the listening center

Penguin books in the Library

Matching numbers to words and putting them in order from 1-10, from Jamie Mayas

Counting Tallies from Jamie Mayas

Putting numbers in reverse order from Jamie Mayas

Roll a Penguin dice game

ABC patterns from Jamie Mayas

Counting Tallies from Jamie Mayas

Addition doubles roll and cover

Stamping sight words from DeeDee Willis

Beginning Blends sort from Julie Lee

Some of the great books we read this week:

Next week is going to be BUSY! We are going to dive into all things TACKY, Groundhogs Day and our 100th Day of School!!!!! I'm tired just thinking about it all!!