Not long ago we took a detour because one mine is very interested in penguins. I gathered some materials to go with Mr. Popper’s Penguins as our read aloud. Some of this dovetails with Core Knowledge objectives on habitats (my lesson plan here) so I thought I'd share since I have it. We had a really fun time with this unit.
I'm sorry for the lack of organization. It seems that if I wait to have something altogether the way I would like I don't get it posted at all so I'm just going to post "as is" for this.
Fun song on video highlighting Arctic/Antarctic differences
Antarctica scenery video
Really neat blue whale interactive
Animals and more Animals videos (here is another that may have some overlap)
Note: of course preview first--some great information but both have some things like birth, mention of death, etc. that some kids could be too sensitive for possibly. The second video linked covers the penguin life cycle well and talks about the protective oil on penguin feathers.
Arctic and Antarctic Animals videos (penguins and leopard seals particularly mentioned)
Penguins video
I've got a few other videos in the plans as I go on.
When Scholastic has their dollar days deals they typically put their Penguins Make and Learn Projects on sale for a dollar. I would not pay full price for this but it's more than worth $1 I think.
When I found that I stopped a lot of my own planning and used much of what I found in the download. But here are some links I found and saved in my planning to that point:
Penguin mask. We covered purpose of the penguin beak with this and characteristics of penguins compared to other birds as well.
oil protection (sidebar)
Experiment type demonstrations here and here
Species of penguins in this link. Pictures of species in a component of this lapbook to paste on a map perhaps. Page 12 of this link has a map of the Southern Hemisphere and the whole site (including species information) is really good. Note that 11 has a neat alternative to cover species.
Life cycle and food chain lapbook type components here.
Nice printable here as well. And this site has some food chain information and activities.
This site talks about penguin movement and this video was very good for showing that movement. This video has longer tobogganing and here is another. I am using the fun movement lesson plan ideas from a combination of these two sites to cover the topic in an active way.
Habitat resources:
Arctic and Antarctic animals in this video. Note: there are predator/prey relationships and a polar bear dies for lack of food and penguin death is mentioned as well.
Neat habitat introduction activity here.
This is a great video series (I think 5 part). Some will portions repeat from videos above but we watched it all and the boys seemed to like seeing it again even with some repeat.
This link includes an activity to cover polar bear blubber.
Inuit people:
I’m Using Children Just Like Me as it highlights a couple of children (one Inuit, one from Northern/remote Alaska).
This site was used for much of my lesson basis and our ending activities (scrimshaw and inuksuk).
Videos:
Intuit Music (and some art) and more throat singing
This link has some game ideas and historical information.
These are clips (need previewed possibly—I didn’t watch all--some animal death is shown) from an intuit documentary. I like that it focused on a modern Inuit family whose father is teaching his son traditional activities. I wanted my boys to get that history but also see that the modern life has similarities to their own.
Eskimo Hunting 1949 (not modern...and involves animal hunting/death obviously) This is US Eskimo so I think the term use is ok.
We did a scrimshaw and inuksuk to finish this particular lesson as indicated in the links above.
