A preschool lesson plan based on the theme of penguins:
Book
Penguin Peteby Marcus Pfister
Reading Center
Stock your reading center with numerous books about penguins. Your selection should include both picture books with simple stories and more academic works about penguins as long as there are numerous pictures for your preschoolers to enjoy.
Snack
In the interest of simplicity and less mess, goldfish crackers are a great choice as a snack for your penguin theme.
Concepts
Letter: Pp
Shape: oval
Colors: black and white
Fine motor activities centering around the concept of the colors black and white are suggested for the penguin theme. Options include activities such as coloring the outlined word BLACK or a crayon shape printed on white paper with the color black. Reinforce the colors black and white with your preschool students by referring to the paper as white and the crayons as black. As them which is which. “What color is the crayon?” This would also be an opportune time to introduce the concept of opposites. Help younger preschool students hold their crayons correctly as they color.
Another choice is to place selections of small black and white plastic figures (animals and such) in a clear plastic storage box filled with water. Supply the students with small tongs. Encourage your preschoolers to pull one figure at a time from the water with the tongs, then sort them by color. For sorting, you might use a black bowl and a white bowl. Keep a towel nearby for messes. For young preschoolers, the wearing of art smocks is a good idea during this fine motor activity.
Demonstrate a penguin walk for your preschool students. Keep your arms at your sides and waddle like a duck. Now instruct your students to do the penguin walk. If you like, have a penguin race!
Art Center
Make a construction paper penguin from various sizes of ovals.
Supplies:
Body: large white oval
Wings: black ovals
Feet: orange ovals
Beak: orange oval
Eyes: white ovals and smaller black ovals to be glued onto the whites
Glue sticks
Scissors for older preschoolers to cut out their own ovals, whether from ovals you have printed on construction paper for them or freehand.
Construct a penguin from the construction paper pieces to use as an example. Keep it on the art table for the students to refer to as needed, but do not insist that they make a cookie cutter penguin of their own. As always, allow them to construct their project as they choose to. For younger preschoolers, these may end up looking nothing like a penguin at all and that is okay! As always, the emphasis should be on the process, not the final product.
Songs/Finger-plays
During circle time and other opportunities such as when the children are working in the pre-writing center, sing “P is for penguin, that’s good enough for me” to the tune of “C is for Cookie” from Sesame Street.
Pre-writing Center
Stock your pre-writing center with pencils and papers with the upper case P and lower case p lightly printed on them. Encourage your preschool students to trace the letters while saying the letter aloud.
This is only a small sampling of ideas that you might use in a penguin themed lesson plan for preschool children. Have fun teaching young children not only about penguins, but also about the letter P, ovals and the colors black and white.
