Penguins!!  Is it a bird??  It has feathers, but it can't fly.  Is it a fish??  It can swim really well, but it lives outside of the water.  Penguins are a confusing animal.....but, oh, so much fun to learn about! 

We read The Emperor's Egg by Jane Chapman, which is a factual based story on penguin's and their babies.  I changed a lot of the words so the kiddos could understand it, but the pictures were great and the book was full of good information.  We learned that penguins lay eggs.  Daddy penguins take care of the egg until it hatches by holding it on their feet and tucking it under their bellies to keep it warm.  They don't eat the whole time they are taking care of the egg.  FOR TWO MONTHS!!  When the baby penguin is born, the Mommy penguin comes back and feeds the baby.....by spitting her chewed up food in it's mouth!  YUCK!!

Ms. Ellen taught us all how to waddle like a penguin!  We put a small ball between our ankles and walked around the room pretending to be penguins!  The kids all laughed and had a great time.  I'll just tell you that waddling only slows them down a little!  After a little practice.....somehow they still end up in a run!

We made penguins for art today.  Using a model and very little instruction....the kids all took the pieces and glued them together to make a penguin!  It was a great way to reinforce the vocabulary from the book....beak, flippers, feet......and, of course, a bow tie to make him cute!

YouTube has some pretty great videos about real penguins.  We watched them swimming and eating  and jumping in the water.  One video had thousands of penguins together......we talked about how many friends they had!!  There were also some really cute songs that had the penguin facts we had been learning all day.  All the kids love watching videos and songs on the iPad!  Everything gets previewed first.....Ms. Kelly clicked on the wrong video today......and the words were in French!!  See???  All the things your children get exposed to in one day......wow!.....what an amazing preschool!!