From Amanda's Class...

Penguins!!!

          We started a penguin unit along with our local zoo. Another teacher and I are working together to modify the curriculum they already have and making it work for special education! I am really excited and we have had a lot of fun so far. I will make sure to post what we do as we do it, so that everyone can see what we have been doing!

         We actually started with sorting animals by bird or not bird. We did it on the SMART board and then made a chart to match. I don't have a picture of this chart, but it was a t-chart with boardmaker icons of different animals. The animals I picked went along with the Eric Carle book "Animals".

         After that we worked on the characteristics of birds with a venn diagram. The picture of that is below. 

         The next week we worked on Penguin facts. We did a pre-test with icons and they sorted them based on penguin or other animals. The pre-test is pictured below. Then we went through a SMARTboard file that I created that showed a video clip or a picture and then the next slide was a question that directly related. We started with where penguins live (southern hemisphere), what colors they can be (black, white, brown, yellow and blue), what they eat (fish), what eat them (leopard seals, whales), if they fly or swim. That was the majority of what we discussed with it being our second week of penguins.

        

            For our third week, we read the book "If You Were A Penguin" by Florence Minor. After that, we used the Build a Penguin Clip Art Bundle by Educlips from TPT. The kids came up and sat at the computer and picked the items they wanted to use to build their own penguin. It was so much fun and so cute! After that we did a penguin activity with feathers (since penguins are covered with feathers!) I made a template and my kiddos glued feathers to the pieces, then we cut them out and added some googly eyes to finish the penguin! They are both so cute, they are posted below. 

We are having so much fun with this unit! If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email me at showmesped@gmail.com