Click here to read 19 Penguin Activities Perfectly Adorable for Preschoolers! on Hands On As We Grow®
Embrace some winter charm with hands-on penguin activities for preschoolers! As a mom, I understand the importance of keeping little ones engaged, especially during those longer indoor winter days.
Discover hands-on penguin-themed activities that are both simple and fun for preschoolers. Let’s create a winter wonderland of learning and fun for your little ones!
Join in the celebration on National Penguin Awareness Day, January 20th, with a day filled with games, snacks, and exciting educational activities at home or in the classroom.
Celebrate Penguins with Games
- Play a penguin matching game to practice shapes and colors using free printable penguin templates found on Welcome to Mommyhood.
- Practice the ABCs with a penguin alphabet game using a free printable found on From ABCs to ACTs. As a bonus, your child will be able to practice their cutting skills, too!
Snack like a Penguin
- Since penguins like to eat fish, have fun with fish-shaped snacks before eating them. Bonus: this penguin activity can also be a math lesson!
- Build a yummy penguin-shaped snack using crackers, black olives, cream cheese, and carrot pieces as shown on Fantastic Fun and Learning.
- Create a penguin snack using bananas, chocolate, orange circle candy, and candy eyes, found on Momma Told Me. If you don’t have any candy eyes, use chocolate chips or something similar.
Fun Penguin Crafts
- Build a penguin out of craft sticks with a noodle bow tie as seen on Crafty Morning.
- Make a footprint penguin as found on Free Kids Crafts. It’s perfect to use as an art piece or to make fun winter cards, and it’s fun sensory play for toddlers!
- Use a toilet paper tube to DIY a fun penguin as seen on Easy Peasy and Fun.
- One Little Project shows you how to build a penguin out of an egg carton.
- Make a paper plate penguin as seen on Free Kids Crafts.
- Valentine’s Day cards have never been cuter! Use heart shapes to create sweet penguin cards as seen on The Spruce. Plus, you’re ready to send your love on Valentine’s Day!
- Use cotton balls to build a penguin as seen on Glued To My Crafts.
- Build a penguin out of your child’s handprints on Crafty Morning. If you don’t have foam for the handprint feet, you could use orange construction paper instead.
Engaging Penguin Activities
- Watch a penguin movie. We love Happy Feet and March of the Penguins.
- Help your child understand just how large different species of penguins are. You can find penguin height information on Cool Antarctica. You can follow the ideas on From the Hive, and actually draw lifesize penguins. Or use a tape measure to just mark each penguin’s height to compare to your child. Talk about what you notice!
- Read books about penguins. The Measured Mom has a great list of fun penguin books that you can pull from.
- Pretend to be a rockhopper penguin hopping with feet together from “rock” to “rock” (paper, pillows, or plates laid out on the ground). Then, have fun hopping, jumping, and skipping on your “rocks.”
- Tape a large line across your floor and try to waddle like a penguin on the line. Since penguins lay eggs, make it even more challenging and add in fine motor skills by having your child hold a spoon with an egg (either hard boiled or plastic) as he or she waddles from one side of the line to the other.
- Did you know that you will never find polar bears and penguins together in the wild? Penguins are only found wild in the Southern hemisphere of the world, whereas polar bears are only found in the Northern hemisphere. Use the resources at International Penguin Conservation Work Group to visualize where penguins live. Then see if you can find those same locations on your own map. You could even pull up pictures of penguins in the wild around the world!
It also can help to keep preschoolers engaged in these adorable penguin activities by giving them tidbits of information. Here are 3 penguin facts for you to share:
- Where do penguins live in the world? They live in the southern hemisphere. We mostly think Antarctica, but did you know they live on every continent in the southern hemisphere. Here are 10 places penguins live in the world.
- Can penguins actually fly? Penguins can’t fly through the air, but they can through the water!
- Why are penguins important? They’re so cute! They are, but really, penguins serve as food for their predators (leopards, seals, seabirds, etc), and prey on fish, squid and krill. Read more here.
- Why are penguins black and white? The black on their back camouflages them from above, to look like the deep color of the ocean. And the white belly is bright, so when looking from below them in the ocean, blend them into the white above them.
- Here’s 10 cool facts about penguins.
What other fun activities do you recommend for a penguin theme?
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