Penguins!

Thank you so much to all of my bloggy friends who left such kind words for me.  I appreciate you more than you can know.

A lot of people don't like the month of January.  The holidays are over, nothing to look forward to.  I happen to like January, because I think that it is the perfect time of year to teach about different polar animals.  This week we are learning all about PENGUINS!!  Here is a picture of my science workstation...Penguin Style.

We have been reading different books that are about penguins.  The kiddos have to decide if the book needs to go in the fiction or non-fiction basket.  In the fiction basket, we have Tacky books.  I don't know if you are familiar with Tacky Penguin, but he is HYSTERICAL!  There are several Tacky books, but this is the one you should get first:

Along with the fiction and non-fiction books, the big book about penguins, and the penguin puzzle, you might have noticed the green notebook.  It is our classroom observation journal.

When the kids are in the science station and learn something new, or discover some neat piece of information about penguins, they share it in the journal.

Here is my entry:

Here is Faith's entry:

I got the idea for observation journals at a Debbie Diller conference this fall.  (More about that in another post.)

I have also created a Penguin Assessment Tool:

In this pack, there is a quiz that includes a multiple choice portion, true or false, fill-in-the-blank, and label the penguin.  It comes with an answer key and a non-fiction/fiction penguin book list.  If this is something you might be interested in, CLICK HERE.

I hope that everyone had a great day back at school, especially if you are just starting back after the holiday break.  We started back last Wednesday, so the thought of facing a full week is a little intimidating!

Happy Monday!