Penguin Bulletin Board

I got a free calendar from some charity or other last month -- NWF or WWF or some similar wildlife-supporting organization -- that had twelve lovely pictures of wild animals.  But it was a small calendar, 8"x10" or so, and I like the big 12"x12" calendars because I write all my appointments and birthdays on them.  But these pictures were so great, I didn't want to just throw away the calendar.  So I decided to use them for bulletin boards for the next couple months.  We started this week with penguins.

All three of my kids have been sick this week, so instead of supplementing our usual school work with things for the bulletin board, this is about all we did.  We began by watching National Geographic-style videos of penguins on YouTube, and after we had watched a few, I asked the kids to tell me some things they had learned.  We wrote those on paper and stuck them on the board around the picture of the penguin chicks.  Another day, I read to them about penguins out of the children's encyclopedia we have, and again I had the kids tell me things they had learned.  Daniel drew and cut out some fish one day, and Mercedes colored a picture of a parent penguin feeding a chick.

One day, I cut apart a map that showed penguin's habitats, turning it into a puzzle.  Mercedes put the puzzle together and glued it onto a piece of construction paper.

While she was doing that, Daniel worked on his writing and spelling by writing out the word 'penguins.'

I tried to find a memory verse that tied in a little with what we were studying, but the best I came up with was  "Then God said, 'Let the waters be full of living things.'" (Gen. 1:20)  Maybe next week I'll find something a little more applicable, we'll see.