Every Unit that I teach is usually based on a book. “The Emperor’s Egg” is my ultimate favorite penguin book, so this is how I “hook” the students into becoming excited about penguins!

See the emperor penguins in action!

Here is a cute video of a male penguin holding the baby on his feet, as well as feeding him! And then, the mommies arrive! [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7M686pXr6M]

A mommy penguin feeds her baby…

Penguin Craft:

Penguin Can Craft

Footprint Penguin

Penguin WEBQUEST Project: http://visalia.k12.ca.us/teachers/dbronzan/penguinquest/

Penguin Sight Word Facts– After reading “The Emperor’s Egg” and then viewing a non-fiction book about penguins, my students helped to read the words “have,” “can,” and “like” and were able to decide where to put the penguin facts. (Items on sticky notes: 1. Penguins have: feathers, flippers, a beak, an egg 2. Penguins can: swim, dive, not fly, slide 3. Penguins like: fish, krill, milk, snow). I then gave students writing paper and they wrote: “Penguins” and then completed the sentence based on what they learned from our chart.

“Penguin Love” Poem for the Poetry Station- I provide a peom for each child and they paste it into their poetry journal/notebook. Before placing the poem in the center, I write it large onto a big piece of chart paper and go over it with the students and let them find sight words in it. Then, I place the poem cut-outs and encourage the kids to illustrate thier poem, after gluing it. They do this by drawing what the poem is about-penguins! Then, I provide a penguin craft for them to complete when they are finished with their poem. Click the blue link for the Penguin Love POEM cut-outs to print.

Penguin Sight Words – This is the first time that I introduced a “word” as the foundation to finding sight words. I provided the cut-out sight words for students to cut out and paste by initial letter-sound. I placed this in my Word Work Station. Click here on the blue link for Penguin WORD WORK writing and sight word sort activity to print.

Recycled water-bottle Penguin Craft – I found this on Pinterest but no source was noted. So here’s to the awesome person who created this awesome penguin in a bottle!

“Wow! Words” from “The Emperor’s Egg” http://www.thevirtualvine.com/images/trophies/Vocabulary%20Matching%20Cards%20for%20The%20Emperors%20Egg.pdf My kindergartners will be so smart saying words like: waddled, slippery, horizon and flippers! Thank you ladies at the virtual vine website for sharing! this free download!

Sight Word Eating Penguin – I simply taped on this penguin to the front of a cereal box. Then, cut a slit under the beak. I passed out sight words that I wrote on clip-art fish. I called out the sight word and the student that had the word fed the penguin (we named him Bob, by the way!) As they fed Bob, I had them say a sight word sentence too. After this fun game, I put Bob into the Word Work station. Click on the link for the fish flash cards Fish flash cards (you write the sight words you are studying)

Penguin craft – I drew a simple “U” shape on black and then white construction paper, an egg, flippers, a scarf, eyes and beak shape on construction paper and the students cut out the pieces and created their own penguin. (This is the craft that I placed in my Poetry Station for students to complete after gluing their penguin poem into their poetry notebook.