Saturday, March 19, 2011

Penguin Unit...the Portfolder!

Our penguin unit ends on a high note. Here are a couple photos of my son's final project, his Penguin Portfolder...

Inside view of the double Portfolder:


 View showing Portfolder open from the opposite side...front cover (with white background) and back cover (black background):


The Portfolder contains:
  • photos taken throughout the unit along with captions describing the learning process.
  • penguin acrostic poetry
  • illustration depicting what a penguin looks like above and below water
  • a penguin riddle (Guess Who? from Bridges, Math Learning Center-MLC)
  • KWL (what do I know/want to know/learned) about penguins
  • Antarctica "trip" journal
  • map showing where various penguins live
  • life cycle cards
  • penguin fact book (MLC)
  • clue cards for various penguins to sort (MLC)
  • suitcase & passport from Antarctica journey (passport, MLC)
  • water temperature experiment results (MLC)
  • penguin height graph (MLC)
  • comparison/contrast chart on various penguins
  • descriptive bubbles in which my son describes the learning process for various projects
 We often include a booklist but didn't this time due to space issues.

Although the Portfolder doesn't completely reflect it, we also:
  • took a "flight" to Antarctica
  • played a penguin Mathwire game with our homemade penguin tokens
  • read piles of penguin books, including Mr. Popper's Penguins, and watched several penguin/Antarctica movies
  • played with penguins in our homemade penguin habitats
  • reviewed the continents and oceans of the world
  • "weighed and measured" penguins (MLC)
One additional resource we used in addition to penguin resources previously mentioned includes an excellent DVD, Life in the Freezer, a BBC Video production by David Attenborough.

More on Portfolders.

More on our penguin unit.