Fun with Penguins

I think children and adults love penguins. 

They are so cute and fascinating.

A number of years ago my hubby and I went down to Melbourne to Phillip Island to see the fairy penguins coming back from their day at sea. 

Watching the penguins come onto the beach was so interesting. At dusk the penguins would start coming in on the waves. There would be a group of about 20 to 30 penguins and they would ride the waves in.  
Once on the beach, they seemed to know if all the group was there. If it wasn't, they would go back into the surf and a few minutes later they would come back onto the sand.

This routine could happen several times before they would be ready to head up the beach to the sand dunes and to their burrows.

Once the group was assembled they would waddle up into the sand hills to their hungry chicks.

 The chicks were eagerly waiting in their burrow, it was the cutest sight. 
Sometimes the chicks would come out of their burrows and harass the penguins as they came past as if to say...

"Are you my mother?"

 There were several groups of penguins all along the beach coming in from a day at sea and as the night fell the beach was full of fairy penguins. It was a wonderful sight.

If you get the chance you should visit the little fairy penguins at Phillip Island, you won't be disappointed.

   

I worried for the chicks whose parents did not return. 

I know, I am one big 'softy'.

Anyway.... 

 

My class learned about penguins and my little ones were like sponges and soaked it all up. 

Before we started the unit we talked about what we know about penguins.

 

We made a Penguin Facts book and I was so impressed with my students' writing. 

As we learned new information we completed pages in the book.

 

We also did a penguin Glyph.

 We talked about the food that penguins eat and what animals are predators of penguins.

We did a penguin food chain in our journals...

 We also did some measuring. 

We estimated whether we would be taller, shorter or the same height as the emperor penguin.

 Of course we had to check our estimate.

I have a life size blow-up emperor penguin so we were able to compare our size next to the 'real' thing! Well sort of the real thing.

The emperor penguin is rather huge.

We also made a little reader , The Itty Bitty Penguin.

I did a pocket chart activity and then my little ones made their own book to take home.

 My little ones had a lot of fun learning about penguins and so did I!!

We did lots of other literacy and maths activities.

 

I finally put all my activities together and it is available on TPT HERE 

Happy teaching.

 

 

Pink!

Have you read the story Pink! by Lynne Rickards to your students?

In the story, we meet Patrick, a little penguin who wakes up one morning to find his world has been turned upside down. He’s turned pink! Patrick leaves his home and friends to find where he fits in but at the end, he realises that his friends still like him no matter what he looks like.

We also read  It's Okay to be Different by Todd Parr.

Both these books are great books to talk about diversity with your students.

We did a penguin craftivity and wrote about:

It's Okay to be Different

It is important for students to realise that it’s okay if they are different and they’ll still be accepted and have friends. 

We also wrote about 'What is a friend?'

You can download a copy of this writing sheet HERE

I have put a mini unit together with activities to go with the story 'Pink!'

The unit will help your students accept who they are and realise 
it IS okay to be different!

 

The Pink penguin craftivity and other activities are available 
at TPT HERE

Happy teaching

Gone Fishing ~ Maths Game Freebie

Here is a maths game I know your little ones will love. There are 3 variations of the activity so you can cater for the different levels in your classroom.

I have also included black and white copies if you prefer to save on ink.

 

You can download this for free from TPT HERE.

Happy teaching

Happy New Year

It's hard  to believe another year is over.

My New Year's Eve was very exciting. 

We have friends who have an apartment on Sydney Harbour. 

We went to Sydney and stayed with them for the night and had a party. 

 Here is my hubby with some of the guests at the party.  
Don't you love the crazy glasses and hat!

 

Instead of fighting the crowds that gather to watch the fireworks, we had the best view ever from their balcony.

Sydney is famous for its New Year's Eve fireworks. 

 I took some photos of the fireworks but my photos did not turn out very well. 

I found this photo on google and this is what we could see from our friend's balcony.

It was   S-P-E-C-T-A-C-U-L-U-A-R!!

2012 was a new adventure for me . Instead of blog stalking, I took the plunge and became a blogger myself. It has been an exciting journey and I love all the new friends that I have made. 

Blogging has certainly made me a better  teacher. 

I get so many new and wonderful ideas from teachers all around the world and of course the winners are the children I teach.



To celebrate the new year, I am having a SALE.

 Graphics by Hope King
 

To all my friends I send you my love and wish you a year full of  love, laughter and good health. 
 

Fun in the Snow.

It is Summer down here in Australia and we are having great weather. 

I love the warm weather but I also like it when it's cold. 

We had a lot of fun when it was winter doing lots of fun snowman activities.

Here is a peek at what we did.

 We did a snowman glyph.

My little ones did such a great job.

We wrote about our snowman.

We labeled a snowman.

We also read 

Snowmen at Night and Snowmen All Year 
by Caralyn Buehner

We did a fun craftivity about Snowmen at Night and did a writing activity
If I were a snowman at night. . .
 

We read some poems and also did this snowman poetry craftivity.

We did lots of other activities. 
Here is a preview of the activities. 

 

All these activities are available at TPT HERE

Happy teaching

No words, just love

Pete the Cat Saves Christmas

My little ones love Pete the Cat books. 

We had a lot of fun doing activities about Pete the Cat Saves Christmas.

Here is the craft activity that we did.

 

 

 We did a Pete the Cat craftivity with a simple cloze and then my little ones drew their favourite part of the story.

Look at the cute pictures that they drew.

This craftivity is available for free HERE

Enjoy!!

Happy teaching

CURRENTLY December

Farley from 
Oh' Boy 4th Grade is having her December currently

 
Wow December is here AGAIN!

I can't believe how the year has gone ~ it seems like just a blink.

I have to say I LOVE  everything Christmas.

I so enjoy decorating the house. 

The tree is up, but there are no presents under the tree because I need to go shopping.

 

I love the time I spend with family and friends.

Christmas feels good.

It is nearly the end of our school year and everyone is tired, teachers and kids!

We have had reports to write, organise classes for next year, lots of end of year stuff... and some teachers have to move classrooms. 

Fortunately I am staying where I am for next year~ SIGH of relief.

I want school to be over so I can just focus on CHRISTMAS.

Everyone comes to my house so I am super busy with preparations.

As you know I am from the 'land down under'. 

 My house is surrounded by very large flowering gum trees.

Not all gum trees have flowers.

If you know May Gibbs' books Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, she has those flowering gums and the gum nuts in her stories.

Anyway, the gum trees have yellow flowers at present and the birds, especially the parrots are having a lovely time getting the nectar from the flowers. 

I can hear them all day.  

Because of the large gum trees around my house, we have a lot of birds, especially kookaburras.

They love to start laughing about 7.30 at night and 4.00 in the morning. 

I do love them but not at 4.00 am in the morning!!

Yesterday morning there was a kookaburra seeking refuge on my outdoor deck. He was there for several hours. This is very unusual for them to do that. 

 I noticed that one of his eyes was all white, he had obviously  injured it. 

Kookaburras have very sharp eye sight and rely on that to catch their food. 

Because he had been on my deck for such a long time, I decided to see if he was hungry and yep, as soon as I threw him some mince, he was into it. 
I am a soft touch when it comes to animals. 

 Happy teaching and Merry Christmas!