During our topic on Polar Lands, Primary 1 focused on learning all about penguins. The children enjoyed playing in the class igloo where we could dress up as penguins and other arctic animals. Each child make a Penguin using a toilet roll tube and these were added to our class display. We completed it with some Handling Data work. We compiled a graph to show whether or not penguins were the favourite animal of our class and they are.
Pupils learned about Emperor and King Penguins, who looked after the egg before it hatched and who collected food for the baby penguins. Ask the children some questions. You will be impressed with their knowledge.
AN interesting fact that we learned, was that a penguin’s feathers are waterproof. We decided to test this theory by colouring in a Penguin using wax crayons. We then sprayed the Penguin with water and although the page surrounding the Penguin got wet, the wax coloured Penguin did not. The water droplets sat on top of it.
Children had the opportunity to measure penguin heights using cubes. From this, they could identify an Emperor Penguin and a King Penguin based on their sizes.
Children enjoyed the story of ‘The Runaway Iceberg’ and how Gaspar and Rossi Penguins used their flippers to swim back to land whenever their iceberg melted. The children then cut and pasted a polar scene for the two character penguins to enjoy.
Lastly the children made ice eggs. We put toy penguins inside balloons, filled them with water and put them in the freezer. We took them out 24 hours later, cut off the balloons and each child had the opportunity to handle an ice egg. We then placed the ice eggs around the school in different areas to see what conditions were needed for the penguins to hatch (melt) out of the eggs. We learned that warm and light places were ideal for this.
We hope you enjoy looking at our photos.
