Back to School Again...with Penguins!

Before I even begin to tell you what we have been learning at school, I have some exciting news to share!

I am a first time Aunt! I am so in love already. She is absolutely perfect and precious and innocent...I could go on and on. What a blessing!

In other news...we did begin our penguin unit at school! Check it out on my blog HERE! This was supposed to be a two week unit, but we decided to change it to a three week unit. I absolutely love teaching nonfiction units because it is amazing to see the knowledge that children gain and watch them become so interested in a topic.

On Monday we completed the 'K' and 'W' in our KWL. They actually surprised me (like always) with the amount of previous knowledge they had on penguins. When I write the information that they already know, I write everything they say. We will revisit the 'K' and cross out misconceptions or fix them to be true. As you can see below, we also already learned a lot of new information on penguins as well!

On Tuesday, I introduced their 'Word Splash' words for the penguin unit. I call children up to 'splash' the word on.

I read them the words, but I don't tell them the meaning. As we read our nonfiction books, the students have to listen for their words. If they hear one, they give me a thumbs up. Then, we will go over the definition. After we go over it, I move the word over to the left hand side.

On Wednesday, I stayed home to meet my amazing niece. So, on Thursday, we labeled our penguin.

I call one student up at a time to label the penguin...for some reason my kids really enjoy this activity!

During writing, we began our nonfiction 'All About Penguins' book (Common Core W.K.2)

The children really did an awesome job writing down some penguin facts on their first page. (Some students do use the KWL for guidance)

They also did their second page on what penguins eat. 

I am having a blast with the penguin unit so far! I will share some of our centers and other activities soon! I did have a mini 'teachable moment' today. We were reading one of our penguin books and it was discussing how penguins can tell each other apart by the sound that they make. My students didn't believe me! They thought there were way too many penguins huddled together for them to know the difference. So, I had all of my students close their eyes. I told them that if I tap them on the head, they have to say 'hello'. We did it one time and I had the students open their eyes. I asked them if they knew who said 'hello' and of course they guessed right away! We did it a couple more times and they guessed correctly each time! They couldn't believe it! It was super cute!

You can find the activities mentioned above, in my penguin unit on TPT.

I am linking up with Denise over at Sunny Days! She is showing off some other great winter ideas :)