Abigail is in kindergarten and her class is doing a study series on penguins. She brought a form home telling of her assignment. First off, the class adopted a penguin in the Falkland Islands. I read a little about the World Wildlife Fund adoption program and it sounds pretty neat. I also learned that Emperor penguins can grow to 4 feet tall and weight 80 pounds…that’s the size of Isaac! Anyhow, her class decided to name their adopted penguin Crystal.
Each student was to research a type of penguin, write a report, and make a model of their penguin. There are around 23 students in her class and each student was assigned a different type of penguin. I had no idea that there are more than 20 different types of penguins! Holy moley! Anyhow, Abigail was assigned the Little Blue Penguin so we hit wikipedia and learned a lot about Little Blue Penguins. I read each section to Abigail and she responded back with sentences that described what she thought was important. I typed in her words and she completed her first school report! You can read her report here if you’d like.
Next, we had to work on a model of the little blue penguin. We brainstormed a little to come up with a base around which to build her penguin. We finally settled on a 2-liter bottle (it’s about the same size as a Little Blue Penguin). Emily and I found a pear shaped ornament holder on sale at the local craft store which worked perfectly as a head. I had to help some with cutting the bottle but Abigail sawed the wooden dowels for legs and used the hot glue gun to fasten it all together. So, we attached all of the pieces and she covered it all with masking tape (to give her a base to paint and to hopefully give it a feather appearance). Abigail finished painting it last night and glued the eyes on to complete Sarah, the Little Blue Penguin.
That’s a funny thing about Abigail…she names almost everything..and she always uses the names Sarah (with an ‘h’, of course), Elizabeth, or Kylie.
Another funny thing about Abigail, she was not named Grace for a reason. The poor child painted the floor, the table, herself and me in the course of painting Sarah. I can’t help but laugh most times- I am pretty hard on our dining room table as well. I just hope our house makes it through!
What a cool idea to make a penguin!!! Looks great! I’d give it an A+ hands down
Kris
Great job! What wonderful family memories you’re making. 🙂
That’s fantastic!!! She’s in Kindergarten?!?! Man have times changed.
Cath
Abigail, I really learned a lot from your report. I didn’t know there penguins that small. Your model it great too. It looks just like a “Little Blue Penguin” in the picture. Great job!
A blue penguin, cool!
Wow! Abigail, I am totally impressed! I was a Kindergarten teacher for two years, but we never got to study penguins! I had no idea there were that many kinds either! That will be totally cool to see all the different kinds of penguins all in one group once everyone else finishes their project. Yours looks terrific!
what a perfectly wonderful project. I am shamelessly going to swipe the idea for a homeschool project, yes I am!!! I also need to talk to you about your bees and powdered sugar. You comment on my dahlia picture was too hilarious, I spent 5 minutes scrolling up and down and up and down…until I got dizzy and had to stop!!!
Way to go Abigail! That is mighty fine looking penguin.
I will admit, I had no clue there were that many types of penguins either. My goodness the things we learn from our kids!
Great Job Abigail!!!
I especially liked reading your report, very thorough. And a very nice job painting. I also liked were you tried to turn your dad into one of the “Blue Man Group”, keep up the good work.
Nice report, she taught me something. Love the model I too give her an A+
Thanks everyone…I read your comments to Abigail and she was just delighted and giggled in excitement each time. She was so happy to make it and we certainly did learn a lot about penguins…her even more than me as her fellow classmates had to give oral presentations of some sort to the class. Kindergarten is different from when I was there but I really like her teacher and am glad she is getting to learn so many cool things!