Did You Know About This?

I recently got an email from the zoo telling me about the activities they have planned for World Penguin Day.  I had no idea there was such a thing, but these days it seems like there is a day or week or month for almost everything. 
I once did a search for various "celebration days" to see if I could come up with an idea for an activity for every one of them.  As you might expect, I gave up - at least for the moment.

But I do have activities for Earth Day, for Fire Prevention Week, for Dental Care month and Vision Awareness Month, and probably a few I'm forgetting.

Now, I love penguins. The penguins at our local zoo, here where it is warm, are African penguins, who live off the Cape where it is warm.  Included in the celebration is a bubble blowing machine.  Evidently penguins love to chase bubbles.  Who knew?

My daughter actually visited South Africa last year and went down to the Cape to see the penguins.  She held out her hand to one, and it bit her.  I put a bounty on his head. (Just kidding!)

When we lived in Boston we would go to the aquarium there and watch the penguins a lot.  Here, we get to Sea World only occasionally now that the kids are grown.  But when we do I love to watch them.

There are many different kinds of penguins.  We all tend to equate penguins and the Arctic, but there are several who live in warm waters off of Equator (in the Galapagos Islands) and those off the coast of South Africa.

To celebrate World Penguin Day, I'm going to have students I work with use my interactive books about penguins.  The resource includes books to interact with, books to make, penguin comprehension questions, a book to write and some penguin-inspired phonological awareness tasks.

I'm also giving you something to celebrate about - a free file folder matching activity, which you can find here.

Enjoy the penguins, and...keep on talking.

An InLinkz Link-up