Penguin Poetry & More (Penguins #6)

I'd promised a loyal reader that I'd continue to post what we're doing with our penguin unit. We're still plugging away. Here are the highlights:

* We watched a National Geographic video, Antarctic Wildlife Adventure. The video depicts the true story of a family with three young boys who travel the coast of Antarctica, studying penguin colonies. The purpose of the movie isn't so much to learn facts about penguins, but to experience what it would be like to travel Antarctica, seeing wildlife up close. I couldn't believe it when the boys were able to wander about the ice near the sea, hang from the ship mast, and gaze out from the freezing deck in their underwear. :) It shows a very adventurous lifestyle, filled with daily learning. A second story on the video tells about a group of men who dare to scale one of the dangerous peaks in Antarctica.

Both stories were fascinating. My son wrote about the adventures in his travel journal.


*We read a delightful penguin poetry book, Antarctica Antics: A Book of Penguin Poems. My son is writing some acrostic poems using names of several different penguins. This on-line tool takes students through the steps of brainstorming an acrostic poem.

* We've studied several more penguins and added them to our height chart and our comparison/contrast chart. (To see more complete information, view our past penguin entries.)

* With each penguin we study, my son writes an entry in his travel journal, describing what he "sees" as he visits each penguin.

*On a world map, my son color codes each type of penguin we "visit," showing where it lives.

* The Bridges curriculum (from which many of our lessons come) includes some worksheet fact cards whereby students are asked to decided which fact cards go with which penguin. I like to have my son take ownership in as much of the process as possible, so this week he made his own fact cards about two penguins to "quiz Mommy"...I had to sort them into envelope pockets. After I was done, he asked me to make him some fact cards. Then he sorted mine. He thought mine were easy! ;)

We'll wrap up a few final lessons and then post our PENGUIN PORTFOLDERS! :)