Wednesday, January 12, 2011

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!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is such a great project. The penguins are really cute and how wonderful that you can use them for math counters.

Jennifer said...

Fabulous idea -- as always!!!

Ticia said...

I've learned not to get cheap paint either. It just isn't as pretty. What'd you buy?

Ticia said...

OH, and they showed extreme patience waiting for each step to dry. I'm not even that good at that.

Anonymous said...

oo those fingerprint penguins are adorable! What a fun way to learn counting by 2s.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I was also wondering what C and R were up to while they were waiting for the paint to dry :) Somehow Anna really struggles with skip counting unless she sees the number line or the hundred chart. She doesn't have the pattern in her head yet. I'll look for this book to reinforce it. The picture of R daydreaming is too funny.

Sherri said...

Adorable!
I love it!

An Almost Unschooling Mom said...

I love the fingerprint penguins! Terrific project :)

The Mom I Want To Be said...

What a cute activity to go with the book. I'm excited that I was just able to reserve this book at our library. We are just starting to work on skip counting. Thanks!