Penguin Unit Overview!

Since I have not had a chance weekly to post each of our activities and I don't have pictures for all that we did throughout our unit, this post serves as a sort of "outline" of our experiences that past few weeks!

All About Penguins - Informational Books!
The overall lessons/topics covered for our books included:

• Types of Penguins
• Penguin Habitats
• What Penguins Eat
• Penguin Adaptations
• Penguin Predators
• Penguin Heights
• Comparing Penguin Heights
• Penguin Diagrams
• Life Cycle of Penguins

All student's books became their own through their writing, illustrations, order of topics discussed, and paper choice. Each page was written following a whole-class lesson or learning experience. Some were based from mentor texts while others were hands-on activities. To help complete our books and explore a non-fiction text feature we have been learning about, all students added in a Table of Contents to help readers maneuver through them. 

Other topics discussed in our overall study of penguins, this week as well as in past weeks have been:

• How Penguins Stay Warm
• Blubber & Feather Oil Experiment
• Penguin Huddle
• Walking Like a Penguin
• Waddling practice
• Carrying an egg on our feet practice (with potatoes)

The last component of our penguin unit was our technology integration. See earlier posts - but students were able to videotape themselves sharing information about penguins as they learned it. They also were able to ask questions or share their writing throughout the weeks of our penguin study. I think we will revisit this component of our penguin unit in many upcoming units this year as well :)