Up and Down

Our first week of winter story time was devoted to penguins. We started out with a rhyme that I had the kids repeat after me:

Their suits are black,
And their vests are white,
They waddle to the left,
And they waddle to the right.

They stand on the ice,
And they look very neat,
As they waddle along,
On their little flat feet.

We did motions as we recited the rhyme as well: swinging our heads left and right, wiggling our heads, and moving our fingers like little feet waddling along.

We followed our rhyme with our first book, Valeri Gorbachev’s Turtle’s Penguin Day. Little Turtle decides he wants to be a penguin after his daddy reads him a penguin bedtime story. So he dresses himself up like a penguin and goes off to school. The children thought this book was really, really funny. Even the cover, with Little Turtle dressed in an oversized black suit jacket and red slippers, made them giggle.

Our second book was Oliver Jeffers’Up and Down, about a little boy and his best friend, a penguin. The penguin wants to fly, but the boy is not sure how to help him achieve his goal. The penguin finally finds a way he can soar high in the air, but will his best friend be there to catch him on the way down?

After our stories, we did another rhyme:

Five little penguins swam the ocean floor,
One saw a whale, and then there were four.
Four little penguins spun around, whee-ee!
One spun off, and then there were three!
Three little penguins, with nothing to do,
One went fishing, and then there were two.
Two little penguins, having lots of fun,
One fell off, and then there was one.
One little penguin, when the day was done,
Went home to sleep, and then there were none.

Each child got a clip art penguin taped to a popsicle stick to hold and do actions with as we repeated the rhyme.

We did our animal movements dice game from a few weeks ago, but I replaced one of the actions with a new action: waddle like a penguin. After everybody had a turn with the dice, we dismissed to our stations:

Station 1: Laminated Printable Roads from Picklebums and wooden vehicles.

Station 2: Instant Snow Powder and plastic teddy bear counters.

Station 3: Penguins made of hearts:

I found this craft on About Family Crafts.

Join us next time for more winter stories!