Penguin Pairs: Counting By Twos

We enjoy reading books from the Count the Critters series.  This week we are reading Penguin Pairs:  Counting  by 2s by Amanda Doering Tourville.  Emperor penguins dive into the icy cold water two at a time, and each page aids the reader in counting by twos and doing simple addition up to twenty.

We made our own penguin pairs.  C and R each made twelve fingerprint penguins following the directions from the DLTK website.  First, I folded large pieces of construction paper into twelve squares.  Then, I told them to put a white thumbprint in the middle of each square.

Once the thumbprints dried, I showed them how to make black fingerprint wings on each penguin.

I think R was daydreaming as she made her penguin wings!

Again, we waited for the paint to dry, and they added black fingerprint heads to the penguins.  Orange markers were used to add beaks and feet.  The final step was to use a toothpick to dot on white paint eyes.

Once the penguins were done, we cut out the squares and worked on counting by twos up to twenty-four.  C can count by twos much higher, but this was pretty new for R.  She did great and picked up on the concept quickly.

We also used the fingerprint penguins as we read the book to do the addition and counting by 2s.  C was a great helper; it's nice to see that he really wants his sister to understand a concept that he knows well.

On another note, I will never buy cheap paint again.  I thought I was saving money, and figured the paint would work just as well as any other paint, but I was wrong.  C redid his fingerprints several times and the black paint is still very light.  I'll keep this paint for some art activities, but I'm going to buy some better paint to use most of the time!