I too purchased Deanna Jump's unit & {of course} I LOVE IT, as do my Kinders.
My team plans together and this quarter we're focusing on holidays & geography in Social Studies/ animals & life science - our penguin unit is introduced to the students by making a schema chart together. This chart was introduced to me by Deanna Jump, from the infamous Debbie Miller in Teaching with Intention. I love Reading with Meaning, so I read her second installment last summer & fell in love with the schema chart. In the book Teach Like a Champion, I learned that students need to realign their thinking to clear up misconceptions, I like to use the schema chart with sticky notes as opposed to a KWL (mostly because I have no place to put thoughts down that need to be altered due to misconceptions). We made adjustments to our thinking (moved sticky notes) as we read Gail Gibbons' Penguins!. We had some great talks about fiction vs. non-fiction too, in preparation for publishing our Penguin Non-Fiction Book next week.
Later that day we also discussed maps & globes. The students had amazing discoveries about why we'd want to use a globe vs. a map. We had some excellent discussion about the tilt of the sun & why we can use a globe to understand why Antarctica is so much colder than the Arctic.
Even later that day we were introduced to Paul the Penguin. He has a hankering for globetrotting! So the students made passports & were introduced to a 1985/86 expired passport featuring - ME {I have had the AMAZING experience of being a Military Brat - born in Germany & lived my first 5 yrs. there, attending Kinder & 1/2 of 1st Grade in a DoD school}. I have used this passport for my Traditions Around the World unit in 1st grade, but now it's apart of my Penguin/Geography Unit in Kindergarten. Amazing addition - the kids have limited understanding of world travel & it's great to see their wheels turning about how we verify our country of origin!
After we learn some passport/Paul facts, he sets off for Japan. So on Wed. we learned about The Land of the Rising Sun {kimonos, sushi, Yen, geta, etc.}, colored a Japanese flag, counted to 10, & learned about this very crowded cluster of islands. Then we read Suki's Kimono...ever heard of this WONDERFUL book? Well, it is a great story of a K/1st student who is brave and proud of her heritage, she decides to wear her kimono on the fist day of school - despite her sisters & peers poking fun, she has a great day.
On Thursday it was off to Egypt. And, can I just say how frustrating it is that Facebook is blocked from my district's server! I mean I understand why, I just forgot to put my mummy pics from the British Museum in my Dropbox account, so the kids were really disappointed that I didn't get to show them a real Mummy, exposed finger & all. {It was really GROSS to me, but they were really into it!! :)}. I will show them on Monday instead!
Yesterday it was a French visit & singing "Frere Jacques." Of course after each visit we stamp our Penguin Passport. It's such fun & really the kids learn so much about the world.
Friday is also Sci.-Fri. and I {attempt} to do various experiments. The blubber experiment was done by my teammate with all the Kinders (our numbers are 25/26, so we hired a 6th teacher - but since we didn't want to deal with the problems/hassle of moving kids, we opted to use this teacher like an interventionist - pulling various students for reading, writing, & math. On Th. my class gets 25-30 mins. of science {I get a potty/Coke break}).
SO, we watched the "Emperor Penguin Egg Transfer" video, from YouTube {floating all around Pinterest}. Then we read our "Regurgitate" poem, made penguin hats, formed a rookery moving in and out of the huddle to keep warm, & used bean bags as eggs to simulate the egg transfer. Here are some photos of my Penguin Pals:
Miss Kristan King
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