Penguin Week Activities - Outside

Today was Penguin Day! So we celebrated inside and out (because how often is it sunny in the northwest in January!?).  

Penguin Obstacle Race:

Penguins "toboggan" (slide on their bellies on scooters) using their flippers (hands) to catch fish.

 Some of my penguins put these dirty dirty "fish" (cones) in their "beaks", but most just used their hands to bring them home to the chicks.

My little Penguins then "Penguin Hopped" across the South Pole, and then waddled back to their chicks, who were anxiously awaiting their turn on the fence.

We also did some "Penguin Slides" and "Belly Crawls" in gymnastics earlier on in the week, but this is super easy to recreate and even do indoors (hmmm....maybe).

Penguin Week Activities

Penguin Week (and then some) has finally come to an end! Culminating in our first ever "Save the Emperor Penguin Day" today!  The kids worked hard...and here's some proof:


Learning the Letter "P":
We use Handwriting Without Tears and work with "big lines", "little lines", "big curves", and "small curves" to write letters.  We cut out big lines and small curves, and then glued together to practice our letter "P."

"P" is for penguin! (hmmmm....that one must be looking up :))

We LOVE to paint our feet! It's new to me, so I am still working out all the kinks on how to make it look cute. The paint always becomes blurred and it's never as cute as it is online, but it's still ridiculously cute! And it tickles their feet and makes them giggle. If you haven't painted feet yet - do it! I line up 3-5 chairs and they eagerly take their shoes off and wait (and usually more sit around on the floor and wait for their turn). After they dried, I cut them out, colored on an orange beak, and placed them on a cut-out iceberg for room decorations. Super cute!

Are You As Tall as An Emperor Penguin?! We measured our heights (see iceberg on left) and saw just how tall an Emperor Penguin can be (4 ft! 6 inches for a baby!). They got a great kick out of seeing how they measured up (and comparing hand sizes to the Baby Penguin) and comparing their heights with each other once they were all measured on the iceberg.

There were LOTS more activities (seriously, I had to fill a whole week!) but these are some of my favorites (and one's I snapped photos of). More to come!

Save the Animals Fundraiser - Plan 3

Since the idea started as a Fundraiser/Bake Sale, I figured I'd better stick something to the original plan.  The kids absolute decision to sponsor a Baby Emperor Penguin decided me to throw a completely Antarctic Party for the Fundraiser (previously, I'd thought I'd cover all the animal areas we'd learned about this month: Antarctic, Ocean, Australian).  So we switched it up and simplified our "Bake Sale" to this:

Penguin Cookies:  I measured out all the ingredients at my house (I'm still getting used to the whole Pre-K and wasn't ready to bring in my own goods for them to practice real measuring skills) and let them practice using measuring cups to measure out the pre-measured goods (if that makes sense).  We used the Yogurt Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe so I didn't have to worry about it if they licked those little fingers! I just got a new portable Cookie Maker for Hanukkah and brought it into class.  Unfortunately, it needed to go through a few runs before it stopped smelling like burning plastic, so I ended up taking home most of the cookies to bake there.

Antarctic Hot Chocolate: We were going to make fancy Hot Cocoa mix...but I'm pretty poor and it was such a deal just to buy the huge bin of pre-made mix.  So we went with that.  But they got to practice real measuring - 2 TBS scoops, 6 marshmallows, and 1 big penguin chocolate chip (I made at home with a mold).  Seriously, this kept a huge group of them entertained for at least a half hour.

At the Fundraiser/Penguin Party, everyone got to take home 1 cookie and 1 bag of Hot Cocoa (donations accepted).


Some parents completely forgot to bring money.  Some parents were upset because they brought a lot of money and expected more.  However, it was really hard for the kids not to eat the cookies they made or take home the cocoa and they did a great job of waiting until the party and then only taking after they'd asked their parents. If I did it again, I'd still only do 2...maybe 3..."bake sale" activities (mainly just because I love doing food with kids!).

Save the Animals Fundraiser - Plan 2

January is finally over! And thus ends my first ever Save the Animals Fundraiser.  Overall, I thought it was a great idea and would love to do it again next year! 

+Raised circa $30 for Baby Emperor Penguins just in Penny Drive (not bad for 25 kids in a week!)

-Should have involved the 5 yr old room since it has a lot of my old students who we still spend a lot of time with and they were very interested in the fundraiser (maybe more than some of my own kids)

+Kids loved the "Penny Penguin" bank (pictured below) and bringing pennies!

-More reminders to parents! I sent out a mass email, note home, posted note on door, posted note by front office door, and hyped it up with kids and still have parents coming in every day saying they forgot to bring money or didn't realize it was a bake sale/party/event

+Kids learned about sharing. When I first mentioned that we would be saving up money to donate to the World Wildlife Foundation, I was actually really surprised that the overwhelming reaction was "NO! I am saving my money to buy new toys!" Hmmm...Our motto became "Give a little, Help a lot" and after I did some modeling of donating my own coins (and sharing with them to practice placing in the coin slot), they really started to get into it! My favorite moment came when one of my mom's told me she and her son picked out all the pennies from her piggy bank, and then he went to his and asked if he could give all his pennies, too! Yay!

-I'd love to find a more hands-on way for the kids to help.  We did bake sale activities, but the idea of helping by giving money was still very abstract.  Unfortunately, we don't do field trips. But it's a great idea for a different type of fundraiser or event...

Practicing placing coins in "Penny Penguin" (quarters were a bit tricky, but they got!).

I had to attack the penguin to get all the coins out.  Sorry.

We sorted and counted:

16 quarters

81 dimes (which we are still confusing with the word "diamond")

47 nickels

487 pennies (this is a bit iffy. the 5 yr olds recounted for us and got a lot more. but counting over 400 pennies is HARD with 4 yr olds!)

Busy sorting all the coins!

For my first class-only fundraiser - we did awesome! I'm so glad to all my students and families for donating and helping support not only the World Wildlife Fund, but their kids' learning!

Save the Animals Fundraiser - Plan 1

I've had Party Rock Anthem stuck in my head for the last month.  Seriously.  Every day I'm shuff-shufflling. Kids think I'm crazy.  Although it's better than having this song inappropriately stuck in my head...

With all that pop blowing my mind - I'm just glad it finally blew out my most recent epic idea - Save the Animals Fundraiser!

I haven't done a fundraiser since my college days (where I briefly considered making a living of cold calls, event organizing, and long hours of the Nonprofit Development World).  But I liked convincing people to give me my organization money.  How easy will it be to have 26 cutie kids asking their parents for money to support sweet little endangered animals?! It better be easy, because I just devoted the next 3 weeks to just that!

Not only will this teach my cuties about the animals, but cooperation, teamwork, sharing, and helping the environment! I wish we could take the kids on field trips or that I knew more people in the 'hood to come in and chat with us, but this will be a great start to the beginning!




Update:

The kids have voted ....(seriously, how cute are they! Every time I caught them doing a good deed they got a smiley face vote ticket - best manners I've seen all week!)

And Baby Emperor Penguin is the winner (by a landslide!).

Felt Car Plushie

Felt (3 or 4 squares plus scraps for details)

Needle/Thread

Fabric/Tacky Glue

Jon Scieszka really ought to be required reading for every 4 year old child.  I love him.

Since we already have a multitude of stuffed animals (more on them later!) in my classroom, this one was for my nephew, Mr. Manatee! 

A Humongous Thank You For An Amazing Tutorial Goes To Make-It and Love-It

Of course, I'm too cheap to own a sewing machine (slash haven't used one since 8th grade Home Ec), so mine is all home sewn. I sewed the wheels on with a basic button stitch (and then some inventive looping and more button stitching to ensure it'd stick).  The details to the face/window/hubcaps are all glued on with tacky glue (which was all I happend to have on hand).  It stuck amazingly...for about 30 seconds after being unwrapped by Mr. Moo.  Luckily it was the 3 year old who pulled it off and not the 1 year old - so I'll have to sew it on next time!  I've already got some purple fabric to make a little race car for Little Princess!