Finding Montessori

We were so lucky to visit a zoo recently that has a fantastic penguin habitat. My kids had recently taken an interest in penguins, so beginning with an up close encounter was in order.

Pumpkin takes field notes while Little Dude & Humboldt Penguin look on

These particular little guys - Humboldt Penguins - are warm weather penguins that live in South America when in the wild. They were very curious about the kids. We observed them and noticed how they have adapted to swim in the water. Wings became flippers and feet are webbed.

Flippers for swimming

Webbed Feet

Little Dude compares his hand to the penguin footprints

Humboldt Penguin

We looked at a map of the world to see where they lived and talked about the rocky terrain there. We looked at their footprints and markings on their bodies. They have pink around their eyes!

Who's observing who?

Pumpkin's Observations

Notice the pink?

The colony at the zoo

Pumpkin and Little Dude were mesmerized. We stayed for a very long time watching them swim and eat.

The map at the zoo

Cold weather penguins

Left: a Gentoo Penguin Right: a King Penguin

A King Penguin

A King swimming

Comparing sizes and shapes of penguin eggs

Next were the cold weather penguins. We loved looking at their habitat and watching them swim. We read about penguin eggs and how their ovoid shape helps prevent the eggs from rolling too far away from their parents. The King penguin is the second largest species, the largest being the Emperor Penguin. The penguins barely moved on land but sped past us swimming .

A Gentoo swimming

Having had a good introduction to penguins, we moved on to less concrete things. I made penguin species three-part-cards, which you can find on Teachers Pay Teachers for free here. Pumpkin researched where the different species live and marked it on a world map. We read books on penguins and played Penguinopoly, which taught facts about many species and behaviors. I took advantage of the cuteness factor by creating some math work for the kids which is penguin-themed.

On my shelves

Skip-Counting by Three Work & Easy Counters

Teaching kids to skip-count is a pre-curser to multiplication. Here, I used cute penguin cards to entice Pumpkin and Little Dude to practice skip-counting by threes. Print, cut, (laminate if you have the time and want it to last you for next year too) and teach.
Children put the number cards in order. I included a zero card as it never hurts to remind them of what that is. Since Little Dude is just four and rather new at this whole skip-counting thing, I found using counters helpful. Having scraps of laminated white pieces of paper always handy, I used a snowflake paper punch (I got mine at Hobby Lobby) to make some quick counters.

Cards and Counters

Using counters helped to make this work more concrete for him, and it gave the work an extra element of control. Too many or too few snowflakes meant an error counting. The kids counted out three snowflakes and then found the three card. Next, they counted on three more and found the six card.