Penguins at Play

After reading The Emperor's Egg 

and finding out that emperor penguins are the largest in the world (a male is about 4 feet tall), we found out how we "measured up" to an emperor penguin.

Penguins have a white belly with a black head and back and beaks for catching their food. They live in Antarctica, where they waddle across the ice...

After a female emperor penguin lays an egg, she waddles off to sea and leaves the male to keep the egg warm. They must keep it off of the ice and out of the wind. What better way to do that than to rest it on top of your feet!

Penguins don't seem to mind the cold Antarctic weather because they have thick feathers and lots of fat under their skin to help them stay warm. When it gets really cold, they all snuggle up together and shuffle over the ice in a great big huddle!

When they get to a slippery slope, they slide down on their tummies, pushing themselves along with their flippers.

When the egg hatches, the father penguin has to keep the chick warm the same way he kept the egg warm. 

Some of us just wanted to cuddle our babies:)

I'm a little penguin, black and white.

I waddle to the left and I waddle to the right.

I can't fly, but I can swim,

I waddle to the ocean and jump right in!

 \

We had so much fun sliding into the ocean just like the playful penguins in Penguins to the Rescue.

The book, Tacky the Penguin, 

inspired us to create our own penguins and tell stories about them. We used snow paint to add a white feathery texture to our black penguin shapes. We finger painted with shaving cream, mixing in colors of the ocean to create an ocean for our penguins and then used orange paint to create feet for them. Some of us added facial features using construction paper shapes. 

My penguin's name is Jake.
He lives on an island in his big, strong boat.
he likes to fight with Captain Hook.
He likes to eat pineapple, carrots,
blueberries and strawberries.
Those are his favorite foods. 

My penguin's name is Angel.
She lives in town where it snows.
She likes to go to the moon
where she flies in a rocket ship.
She likes to eat purple fish.

My penguin's name is Sarah.
She likes to slide on her belly
on a very, snowy mountain.
She lives in Antarctica in a hole of snow.
She likes to go to the ball.
My penguin is like the pretty penguins-
Angel, Lovely, Perfect and Neatly.
She loves to sing.
She likes to put on makeup and pretty sparkly dresses.

It's so cold in Antarctica. We found out how cold as we searched in snow for little penguins hidden throughout. We had fun finding them and then hiding them again. We made snowy mountains for them to slide down. 

Penguins eat fish, squid and krill. We  played a fun math game, rolling dice for our snack of goldfish crackers. 

"Musical ice floes" gave us a chance to swim around in the ocean like penguins. We had to listen for the music to stop and then find an ice floe to jump on. 

Playful little penguins had an amazing time in Antarctica!