A Penguin Unit Study

We became intrigued by penguins after seeing the Fairy Penguins (Little Blue Penguins) in Philip Island, Vic, Australia, last December. Seeing hundreds and hundreds of tiny penguins emerge slowly from the ocean and walk onto land was a surreal experience! Some penguins were too timid to come out of the water at first and needed the support of others to walk out! They were sooo cute!!! Unfortunately (or fortunately, since it’s nice that some experiences stay only in our memories), photography wasn’t allowed there, so I have nothing to show you of those penguins.

We eagerly awaited the sunset so the penguins could pop out of these waters.

Anyway, to learn more about these delightful birds, we borrowed many books from the library.

Some of the many, many books we borrowed!

We especially loved the books, Emperor of the Ice, The Old Man and the Penguin, and Penguin Chick. We then followed up our learning with an Art Makes Me Smart lesson penguins, which included watercolor painting, yay!

This is my daughter’s, who tried painting the northern lights for the first time.

My son traced the outline of the penguin but handled the challenge of the watercolors himself.

..and this is mine :)

But the learning didn’t end there…

All this learning about penguins also inspired the kids to make a 5 minute long movie on them, to enter in the Tumbleweeds Film Festival, here in Utah. Though their movie didn’t get picked, it was an extraordinary learning experience for them. They had to come up with a story, write the dialogues, decide the screenplay, design a set, learn cinematography, editing, post-editing…all on their own, and in a week! They gave it their all and yet they weren’t fazed one bit by the results. Because, they had enjoyed the process so much, and that felt much bigger than the prize.