Lesson 55 - Penguins

This month the children have been studying penguins and penguin habitats. In keeping with their monthly theme, we painted our own very adorable penguins, complete with cotton “snow”.

We began by looking at pictures of different types of penguins, including Galapagos penguins, Emperor penguins, African penguins, among others. We also learned that penguins are birds, although they cannot fly, and that among some of their favorite activities are surfing through the waves onto the ice, laying on their “bellies”, and tobogganing through the snow, and taking turns diving off ice cliffs into the sea.  We also learned that penguins mate with each other for life, and they raise their chicks together, each taking partial responsibility for the egg and the chick.  The chick starts calling to mom and dad immediately after hatching, so that the parents will recognize the voice.

The children began by watching a video on how to paint a penguin. They each got a blue piece of construction paper, and some cotton balls. They first painted the penguin’s body by painting a round circle with white paint. Next the children outlined this with black paint to complete the body of the penguin. They also painted the flippers on either side, and added the penguin’s eyes in the middle.
The last paint color they used was orange, with which they painted the penguin’s beak, and the feet. After they finished painting their penguin, the children used some glue to add some cotton ball “snow” to their picture. As you can see, the children had a great time making their wonderfully cute penguins.