This weeks Antarctic like temperatures were a perfect time to study penguins. Our Pre-K students loved learning all about these flightless birds. We focused in on Emperor penguins, measuring ourselves against a life sized model and pretending to be a father emperor walking with an egg on our feet. We also learned about lots of other types of penguins and the class can now easily identify several different species. One non fiction story we read was about a pair of male chinstrap penguins at the Central Park zoo that formed a bonded pair, made a nest and even raised a orphaned egg proving love is what makes a family! Penguins were woven into our math lessons as well as we created prey-predator patterns and made shape penguins as crafts. Today we experimented with thermometers and tested if a layer of blubber could keep you warm in freezing water. Even though the experiment worked we decided unanimously that we would not want to be an emperor penguin stuck on an egg in the cold for months at a time! Makes our winter days look a little less bleak.