Penguins - Piles - Pleasant Surprise

My penguin unit has wrapped up and I wanted to share a few pictures. My kids were so excited during the entire unit and I was having a great time teaching and seeing their excitement. Many of the ideas came from the unit I bought from Deanna Jump.

One of the ideas I "harvested" from a blog is to measure the size of the Emperor Penguin so students could see how tall they are. Some of my kiddos are smaller than a penguin! (I am sorry I don't remember which blog. If it is yours please let me know so I can give you credit). Once we saw the size of the largest penguin I decided to have students work in groups of 3 to make 7 more penguins. Each group was given the name of a penguin, it's height in inches and photos of the penguin. They worked together to create the penguins. Afterwards we compared their heights and placed them in order from shortest to tallest. LOVED, LOVED how it turned out!

The bulletin board shows a few of the nonfiction penguin books we made.

Tonight has been the first night I have had time to blog and "play" on the web. I have been so covered up with paperwork, planning, and meetings that I feel like I have been missing in action. Not to mention - tired! So tired, my 16 year old and 10 year old made supper last night so I could take a power nap after working til 5:30. I have such sweet boys.

On a happier note:
I woke up last Tuesday with fever and strep. It just so happened to be the day I was supposed to go to the local college and meet my student teacher and her supervisor. Needless to say, I didn't make the meeting and wasn't sure when my student teacher would be starting. Pleasant Surprise - I showed up to work on Monday this week & my student teacher, Miss Crabb, was waiting at my door! I have a feeling she is going to be wonderful. After five days in... she is the bomb! She has worked with small groups on inferencing and began making our Valentine's with the kids for our Valentine Exchange.