I would like to begin by saying that even though I am a preschool teacher at the moment, every activity that I do can be modified to better fit the age range of children you may be teaching or the age of your own children.
For the past two weeks we have been focusing on Animals from the Artic, from both Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Our bulletin board shows some of our amazing artwork!
Our first activity was to learn what penguins like to eat, which is fish and squid (also krill).
-I googled "penguin coloring sheets" and printed out the above image in black and white
- Every kiddo got their own paper and a handful of goldfish crackers and we talked about what penguins eat and what people eat
- Then we took gold fish (the kiddos couldn't resist eating some of course) and glued as many as we could onto the belly of the penguin, because our penguins were very hungry.
- After all the fish were glued to the belly, we counted how many fish our penguins could eat and wrote the number down (with some help of course)
The next day we talked about the color of the penguins and where they live.
- I pre-cut black penguins
- kiddos put glue all around the belly area (any area they think a penguin should be white)
- Each kiddo took a salt shaker and shook to their hearts content to give their penguins a neat white belly with texture
- Had the kiddos place an eye on their penguin
Meet Jeffery, our class penguin.
This is something I made out of an old amazon.com box and construction paper.
It is a tool to help the kiddos learn what penguins like to eat as well as brush up on any other skills, such as shapes, numbers, letters, or for older kiddos - addition, multiplication, cvc words, etc.
- cut out the top half of cardboard flaps in the back then use packaging tape to tape the bottom half together - here is the view from the back.
- Take black construction paper and wrap it around entire box so as to completely cover it.
- Now cut out a bowling pin shape for the white areas on the penguin's body and glue it in the middle of box.
- Next cut out a slot for a mouth for the "food" to go into - I would suggest .75in wide by 1.5in long. I just used a sharp knife and a pair of scissors for this.
- For the beak I used a plastic solo cup and cut it down - make sure it's wide enough to cover the slot you cut out. Then I used orange masking tape to cover the cup, as well as attach it to the penguin's face.
- add eyes
- I should note that I should have added little feet, but it works without feet too.
For food - fish and squid coloring pages, measured to fit in slot - for cross-curricular learning, I added different shapes to the fish and squid so that the kiddos could only feed the penguin what I said he was hungry for at the moment. This helps the kiddos with critical thinking instead of just shoving paper fish down the penguins throat.
Another activity we did was to waddle like penguins while balancing an "egg" between our feet. This was rather hilarious to watch.
We were learning that the daddy penguin stays to take care of the egg while them mommy is hunting for food in the ocean. This lead to waddling with an "egg" between our feet. I used socks filled with rice and tied off as the eggs so it wouldn't get to messy.
Learning about penguins always fascinates me, every year, and the kiddos can't seem to get enough of it either!
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