Teaching with a penguin theme is sure to hook your students. Penguins are amazing, but studying them is even more exciting. In fact, researching penguins crosses multiple subject areas…math, science, reading, and writing, and even better than that, kids LOVE them! In today’s post, I am sharing ideas, book suggestions, and resources for penguin and polar animal studies.
BEST books with a penguin theme
To start off, here are my favorite books for the theme. Of course, we can not teach a penguin theme without using great books. The Tacky books are my favorites in the primary grades as well as nonfiction selections. It’s amazing how many different breeds of penguins there are, so there should be a great choices in your school library.
For the middle grades, I love the book, Mr. Popper’s Penguins as a read aloud. You can even share the movie afterwards. You see resources for both of these below.
Eve of the Emperor Penguin
Eve of the Emperor Penguin by Mary Pope Osborne is another great penguin book that I enjoy using with my third/fourth grade kids this time of year. The Magic Treehouse series are well liked by so many children, and I love the fact that Osborne includes such rich vocabulary and ties in science and social studies content into the books. This one takes Jack and Annie to the Arctic for lots of frigid adventure.
Tacky the Penguin
Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester. This series is just plain fun. Our kindergarten teachers have a whole week devoted to penguins and Tacky is a favorite. His crazy behavior keeps the children engaged, and the story works well with many reading skills. You must check them out if you haven’t already. I haven’t made anything for Tacky, but Teresa Maguire has with this great Close Reading set, and it’s free! The set could be used with the whole group to model skills in K-1, and in small group with 2-3.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Another favorite Penguin book of mine is Mr. Popper’s Penguins. It’s always fun to share it and the movie afterwards.I have enjoyed using this book with fourth and fifth (depending on the reading level of the group). It is an old classic. Every group I’ve had read it has enjoyed it. The reading level is third to fourth grade.
Close Reading Resources with a penguin theme
There are so many great options for studying penguins and other polar animals, but I am going to start out with two sets that I’ve made. I plan to use them together during the same week and teach my students to make comparisons across multiple texts. The first is a forever freebie. I have purchased a LOT of close reading materials to use with my students, but I’ve really wanted to make a few of my own. It will introduce your students to penguin research and help your students learn the routines of close reading. To access this FREE resource, simply click the image to the right.
The second set with a penguin theme is a partner script written for two voices called Penguins on Parade. It is a fictional story based upon the idea of Tacky. The main character has all sorts of challenges on the ice, but he overcomes these issues by being a superb swimmer. It would work well if you are trying to teach author’s message/theme or character development. The resource is not free (but is only $3.00). It includes supplementary materials for writing too.
Art Ideas with a penguin theme:
I love pairing art projects with writing, and I found these projects especially cute and fairly easy to use. If you’re displaying work, then adding these to the project sure makes a fun display.
Polar Animal Research:
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Product on sale
Polar Animals Close Reading Bundle and Research ProjectOriginal price was: $17.00.$10.00Current price is: $10.00.
If you’re wanting to do an extended study of polar animals, check out this bundle in my store. It includes five close reading sets plus and a Polar Animals Paper Bag Book Research Project. The paper bag books guide students through the researching process for a fun final project.
This Pinterest board has been formed to collect our planning sheets as well as other themed resources. Feel free to follow it or pin to your own collection.
Other Posts You’d Like:
- Eve of the Emperor Penguin
- Winter “Must Have” Reads for Elementary
- Building Questioning Skills with Winter Research
Do you enjoy thematic teaching? Check out the other themed posts on my blog for ideas you might enjoy trying. The posts each include book lists, resources, tech ideas, and other ideas I’ve found enjoyable. If you enjoy themed teaching, share some of the themes you like in the comments below.
14 Responses
Great post again Carla! Thanks for all the great ideas and for the opportunity to share and link up!
Thank YOU for your donation, Kim. I know the lucky winner will be thrilled with your unit. ๐
Thanks for the opportunity to link, Carla! I see that you noted Martin Jenkins' "The Emperor's Egg". That's a favorite of mine, and one that kids always love to hear!
Linda
Primary Inspiration
Thank you for the opportunity to link up Carla. I always enjoy reading your posts and get lots of great resources and information. I was glad to participate this time!
Sebrina
Burke's Special Kids
Love that we're all sharing about penguins, but we all have different ideas! Thanks for another great linky!
I am so glad you linked up, Linda. I had not visited your blog before, so it's nice to see a new face. ๐ I used to use that with second grade, but now have 4/5. Eve of the Emperor Penguin is more my level with 4th (struggling). I still totally love Tacky though!! My kids are going to have so much fun next week.
Yeah on the resources! Likewise though…I love reading your posts too. It's nice to combine all of these great ideas and make planning easy for everyone! I have way more resources than I have time to do them all. ๐ Nice to have options.
Carla
Isn't that interesting! I noticed that too. So fun! Thanks for linking up today, Teresa!
Thanks for linking up with me and having a fun link up this week! I love teaching about penguins, so this was easy! Thanks for all of the ideas too!
Andrea
Reading Toward the Stars
Thanks so much Carla. I am so pleased this post came through my thread actually, as it is really timely. We are looking at animals from the Arctic and Antarctic in our literacy course this semester coming, so all of the links are AWESOME and very timely ๐ Your generosity in sharing is really appreciated…so that question re: penguins, was a sincere question and I feel a bit naive to admit that I thought penguins were also in the Arctic region before working on this for my literacy course, tbh. Keep up your great work! You are amazing and inspirational ๐ Kylie
Okay…all fixed up! That was my project for today…revised, created a sample of the research mini book (so cute and fun), and even did an instastory. I appreciate greatly your note and revision. I should have caught the error when I bought the clip art that I used. It was named Arctic Animals Clip Art, but included a penguin. I knew better and should have caught it when I taught the unit to my fourth and fifth graders. Goodness, we spent two weeks research penguins, so I knew.
Dear Carla, I love your work and I love your resources! I can't wait to check out your instastory – I don't think I have ever seen one of those ๐ You inspire so many, so thank you ๐ Kylie
p.s. Is there a link to the instastory, Carla?
There isn't a link. They are at the top of your instagram feed. They are live for 24 hours and then go away.