Embellished Penguins

Who can resist Emperor Penguins?  Who isn't fascinated by the icy Antarctic continent?  What, with the far below freezing temperatures, the wind, the tundra, the Southern Ocean, and predators like Leopard Seals and Orca whales, and vocabulary words like "creche," "predator," and "regurgitate," is there not to like?  My students are astounding me with their new knowledge.  

On Friday, we spent a good part of the day engaged in making "Storybook" penguins (as opposed to the real thing they'd been learning about~it's all about non-fiction now), complete with an aurora borealis background.

I googled "emperor penguin art pro" and a bunch of choices came up.  Love Google.  Anyway, this is the link I found and fell in love with:  Penguin Art Project

Deep Space Sparkle is an art blog run by Patty Palmer, an art teacher in California.  I don't personally know her, but I sure wish I did!  I've used several of her art lessons and they always come out terrific.

I did this project after about 2 weeks of instruction on Antarctica, tundra, and penguins.  To begin, we looked at pictures of the aurora borealis in books and on Google images.  I told them they could paint their background in any way they want.  My students each have their own watercolor paint box and they are used to the procedures (Mrs. B carries water cups, students clean up the rest of their materials when they are done).  I had them paint the background before lunch and left them on their desks.

Then I modeled how to draw a capital U for the penguin body, a lowercase u for the white part of the penguin, how to fold a scrap of black in half and make a capital D for the flippers (cut out while still folded), and how to put it all together.  The iceburg was easy, just draw a jaggedy cloud and color some blue on it.

I teach my students the "5 dot rule" for gluing with glue stick.

They used the same procedure for eyes (fold paper in half, draw a circle, then cut) and feet.  We discussed the fact that we know penguins don't have orange bills and feet, but since this is a storybook penguin, it's OK!

To finish, they embellished the whole thing with some bling!  I talked about not overdoing it, as it's a picture of a penguin, not of sparkles, and they really got the idea!

They loved getting to decide how to decorate the picture and using their imaginations for turning scraps of ribbon into hats and scarves.

As they finished, I sent them to the floor for a math game, so I could wipe up tables with Clorox wipes.  With these beautiful pictures adorning the walls, I feel like my classroom should be a museum!