I always seem to be looking for lessons to do with my 1st graders. I was looking through my book 365 things to make a do and stumbled upon cute fingerprint penguins. I decided to use the penguins for a lesson.
Fist I read the story, A Penguin Story. It is about a penguin looking for color other then blue, black and white.
Next, the students picked a 9x12 background color (I gave them purple, blue and orange to choose from). We used white paper to rip the ice glaciers for the penguins habitat. We looked at photos of different penguins too. I was impressed that some of the kids knew all about penguins. More than me!
Then I demonstrated how to make a penguin by stamping their thumb(body) and forefinger(head). The kids used white paint and Q-tips to add snow and the white for the body. We then used oil pastels for the feet.
On the next class, we finished the face and added details. I let them use sharpie for the eyes, but made it very clear that sharpie can not touch the oil pastels. Once the sharpies were put away they added beaks, and other extras. One of my students came up with the idea to add the yellow feathers for the Macaroni penguin. Kids always amaze me!
I love the ides these students had. The penguin stuck in the igloo is too funny!