Play Trays this Past Week

                
      
A venn diagram made from felt comparing where Arctic animals live, on snow,
                               in the water or both.


                                     Counting penguins. 
      I printed the numbered penguins from Children’s Learning Activities.

            
 
                            A scale with jewels and tongs. 
These tongs work opposite then our other tongs or tweezers.  Instead of squeezing them together you have to use two hands to pull them apart, pick up the jewel and close.

        
 
                                    Little bears, die and grid. 
The child rolls the die, counts the dots then places that many bears on to the grid.

After the first day I modified it by cutting the grid down to show six squares.

Play Trays From Last Week

Feed the Penguin game.  Roll the die, match the colour to a fish and feed the
    penguin.  It’s made from a coffee creamer container covered with felt.

       Once the penguin is full unscrew the lid and empty him.


                       What floats? What sinks?
      
Experimenting with the different materials provided then sorting
                  by what they do in the water.

  
Patterning cards from Scholastic using penguins, snowflakes, mittens and sleds.

    
I found these small pool balls at a thrift store.  They are numbered 1 – 10
                 which works great for placing on our 10 golf tees.

Being Penguins

      
I like costumes and I have quite a few miscellaneous pieces at home.  They
come in handy for many opportunities.  Like this week when we are talking
about penguins. 
       
I brought in my tuxedo tails for the children to try on to ‘be penguins’.  They
loved it.  The sleeves were so long that when they flapped their arms it looked
like wings.
                       
                   Of course I had to give it a try.

Grumble, Rumble, Gurgle, Roar

I found a story on line about a little penguin that hears a strange noise and realizes it’s his tummy rumbling.  So he sets off to find something to eat.  I like the story because of the stomach growl sounds that are repeated throughout the story and that it helps children learn about what penguins eat.
              
         You can listen to Whoopi Goldberg narrate the story on nickjr. 

                      I decided to make it into an oral story with props.

I’m a Papa Penguin

We’ve continued with our Penguin Shuffle adding a few more moves of what penguins do, like; swim and slide.  We showed our big buddies how to do the shuffle too.
    

This week we pretended to be Papa penguins and take care of an egg.

    Each child got a plastic egg to place on the top of their feet. 
      
Then we did a little shuffle.  It’s hard work to hold the egg in place.

              
Then last night, I couldn’t believe what I found while on Pinterest, a Papa Penguin poem.  You can find the poem at Little Book Lane website.  The tune is to “I’m a Little Teapot”. 
            
           Today we taught it to our big buddies.

Sorry the sound isn’t the best.

Measuring Up to a Penguin

Emperor Penguins are the largest penguin in the Antarctica. 
 
I decided to draw a life size penguin to post on the wall so
         we could measure the children.
        
Beside the penguin are papers for the children to print their
names depending on their size compared to the penguin.
  
         I’m taller.  I’m the same.  I’m shorter.
  
After measuring themselves the children decide how they compared and
               print their name on the correct paper.
  
                
I loved her approach, lifting her nose in the air to be a little taller.

Penguin Small Play

                          
                  I set up a small world play about penguins.  
  
  The big white blocks and the ice cubes light up and change colours.

 
This child was quite interested in the penguins and wondered what they eat.  One of the books on display was able to give him the answer in pictures.  
  
     Squid and fish.  I happen to have some in my storage room. 
                     I also brought out leopard seals.
 
   Leopard seals eat penguins, and penguins eat the squid and fish.

         
  Oh oh the seals are after the penguins, where can they hide. 
The boy suggested we need an igloo, we’ll work on that tomorrow.