Category Archives: Penguins

Janruary is the perfect time to start a penguin themaic unit.

Since Christmas is over, it’s time to move on to Winter themes…Woo-Hoo! It’s penguin time!

First School has some cute preschool stuff. Check out the heart shaped penguins and the phonics worksheets.

Story It has penguin shaped writing paper with lines, A Kids Heart has penguin themed report paper, and DLTK has one too. Or you can mosey on over to abcteach and type in the text to create your own penguin shape book.

Reader’s Theater is always a treat for the kids. Teachers.net has a cute Tacky the Penguin Reader’s Theater script that I’m sure will be a hit with the kids. Click here for a Tacky the Penguin lesson plan. If you want to mix it up a bit, you can print out the Little Blue Penguins Reader’s Theater Script, but beware – the students have to write the ending!

Literacy based penguin themed lesson plans can be found here, here, and here. If you are not in an English speaking country, the books mentioned may be difficult to find, but with a little planing ahead, you can always order them from Amazon. Or cherry pick some of the activities and incorporate them into learning stations or as classroom experiments.

Follow this link to a primary science reading activity with three comprehension questions.

Check out what other teacher’s have found that worked in their classroom. You’ll find some really cute ideas posted. One teacher posted the lyrics to a song that you can sing to the tune of I’m a Little Tea Pot!

Vickie Blackwell has compiled an extensive list of penguin links, but some of them require membership to access the pages.

Scholastic offers a professional PDF document that has cute penguin templates that the kids cut out and tape to a base. Directions are included.

If you sign up for the free newsletter at The Mailbox you will get access to a tubular penguin craft,  an egg carton penguin craft, Sno-Kiddin’ award templates, a reading comprehension worksheet and penguin paper craft templates. That is, if you type “penguin” into the search box.

DLTK has a cute color penguin counting book and quite a few  penguin crafts and worksheets.

I found this cute little Penguin Paper Chain somewhere, but I have no idea where.

Kinderkorner has some Penguin Prose that you can turn into a sequencing sentence strip activity. For example, take a look at this sentence strip activity for first grade – I’m at Little Penguin Sentence Strips. Read the poem, pair the students up and then have the students arrange the sentences in sequential order. You’ll probably have to repeat it several times.

You can also make a booklet for first grade, (1 I’m a Penguin Booklet) and a cloze booklet for second and third grade (2 I’m a Penguin Booklet.) Cut the page into fourths and staple together. Then let the kids illustrate the pages themselves.

If you have way too much time on your hands, you can record a penguin poem with authentic penguin sounds in the background. You can download Audacity and then go to Partners in Rhyme for royalty free penguin sound effects. Or you can just download the penguin sounds and turn it into a loop that you can play while you read or to motivate the kids while they are working in their seats.

In the meantime, you can try downloading – Penguin Sound Bites to play as an introduction. Let the students listen to it and then have them try to guess what kind of animal it is.

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