penguin parade

Hi y'all! It's Rachel from the tattooed teacher!
I remember a few years ago, after doing a month long unit on Mr. Popper's Penguins with my fourth graders that carried on for two months, swearing I would never teach anything penguin again! BUT, I was having a little withdrawal after seeing so many cute things on everybody's blogs! And let's face it, they are so darned cute!
SInce penguins in general fit nowhere in the required curriculum, we used lots of nonfiction articles about penguins to work on our nonfiction reading skills.
My favorite go-to site is readworks.org...I have a little blog post about how to use their site here, and they happened to have two perfect articles in our reading range!
To put our new learning to good use, we made life size penguins (measuring is a goal for us in 2nd grade) and wrote summaries and made little fact trading cards!
We finished up on Tuesday and I love how everything is turning out!
I've also posted a few new products and freebies all about penguins this week!

trading cards in two sizes

this is a little ELA grammar and language review scavenger hunt...I actually had TWO boys that asked if they could erase their answers and do it again! I guess that's a sign we should do these hunts more often!

and here's a research freebie! I love the setup of the planning sheet. It has really worked well with my second graders and adding relevant details!

I found this pattern block freebie! the kids nailed it!

we made 15 penguins! All life size! 

I am still hanging a few reports...

their favorite thing about the chinstrap penguin was that they stamp their feet and fight when they are angry. I may have told them it was not blood on the two penguins fighting...so now they may think chinstrap penguins have red spots...

isn't that one adorable!

 

and I must change our desktop background with each new theme!

If you are doing any penguin activities, check out all the amazing resources on TpT!