Penguin Cooking, Crafts, Reading Activities and FUN!

Explore these adorable penguin themed recipes, crafts and reading activities for your preschooler this winter. Simply hands on ideas for learning at home.

Penguin Learning Activities and Crafts

One of my favorite preschool and kindergarten learning themes is PENGUINS. I am sure that you have figured this out by now.  Penguins are so tiny, cute, and naturally playful.  They are extremely diverse in their habitats and ways of life making them a great topic to explore science and social study topics.  

They are popular enough that you can find a variety of crafts to do with the supplies in your pantry and simple enough that kids can draw and create their own penguins.

We are using the enthusiasm for penguin fun to get my son excited with penguin learning activities. My 4 year old needs a ; LOT of repetition to master academic topics and so we are trying in fun and exciting ways to get and keep him excited about letters, words, numbers, and counting.

As a former elementary school teacher, I keep in the back of my head that all kids learn at different ages and in different ways.

This is sometimes very hard to forget when a friend whose daughter is 3 months younger knows all her letter sounds, puts together sounds to make words, and can read simple text. I think – what am I doing wrong. Then I remember that all kids learn in different ways and at different times. Sure it is fun to see what others are up to, but know that YOU are doing a great job parenting and that positive interactions with your child are important

Here are just a few activities for the week, the materials needed and the directions to do them at home with your child.

Activity:Sight Word Sentence Strips

Materials:

• White sentence strips or paper cut in thin rectangles
• A black marker

Parent Tip: I love this activity because there are so many variations to this reading activity.  You can make it harder or easier, change the topic and lesson focus, making this a great sibling activity as well. Here are eight suggestions for use – focusing on one or two ideas at a time. 

Ideas for Using the Sentence Strips with Preschoolers:

• Practice oral dictation, meaning let your child tell you what sentences to write.  This develops an understanding that the words we say can be represented with letters on the page.  Write it exactly as they say.
• Use Echo reading; meaning you read, then they read.
• When they are comfortable reading the sentences (or have them memorized – which is OK at the age and I believe that this is early reading) have them read to another family member.
• Point to the words in the sentence as they are read, let your child do the same.
• Count how many words are in each sentence.
• Talk about words, capital and lower case letters and punctuation that can be found in your sentence
• Teach one sight word (such as have) and use it in every sentence. (Dolch world list)
• Cut the sentence apart and practice building it.

Activity: Penguin Launch

This activity was inspired by this catapult article on Mom and Kiddo.

She has instructions on how to make your own catapult here

Mom sanity + fun learning activity = yes please!

Directions to Make the Penguin:

• Load the penguin in the launch.
• Make him FLY leap.
• Since we are working on the letter P, if you land in the bulls eye, you scream P and get a popcorn piece as a prize.  (My seven year old kept score.  For older preschoolers, this would be a great beginning addition activity, we aren’t there yet)

Activity: Penguin Pizza

Materials:

• Pizza Crust (pre-bought dough or home-made)
• Sauce
• Cheese
• Topping of your choice
• Olives (can’t forget these)
• Slice of cheddar cheese for the beak and feet

We like to cook with our kids and make literacy connections as well.  Here’s a great list of penguin books.  Stop by to see what we are reading! While our pizza was baking we snuggled in to read a bunch.

Directions to Make the Penguin:

• Press the dough out in a large oval
• Let your child add the sauce, sprinkle the toppings, and add the cheese.
• Decorate the penguin with olives and your cheese slice.
• Bake as directed
• Enjoy!

If you are not in the mood for pizza – black beans on a tortilla make an easy kid-made burrito lunch too (see collage picture at the beginning of this article for inspiration!

Penguin Unit Ideas for Preschoolers

Stop back every Saturday for a free printable weekly planner and Wednesday’s for

Playful Preschool activity ideas.

1. Penguin Learning Activities
2. Penguin Unit Lesson Planner
3. Penguin Learning Activities: Math Counters
4. Week 3 Free Penguin Unit Lesson Planner 
5. Penguin Cooking Activities and More! 
6. The Ultimate Penguin Guide to Penguin Crafts and Learning Activities
7. Penguin Virtual Field Trips
8. Penguin Books

*Parenting a grade schooler? Here are some cute penguin writing prompts to print.

Want more? Try these Penguin Activities for Preschoolers…