If you have kids who love penguins, there’s no better way to get them excited than introducing activities that feature these wonderful flightless aquatic birds. 🐧
In this blog post, I’ve incorporated activities with penguins as the central figure that will keep your kids engaged while also being fun. 😁
Penguin Activities for Your Kids
These activities help foster creativity and improve fine and gross motor skills while your kids have a good time doing them.
I hope these penguin-related activities and crafts I have listed here will keep your kids engaged and also become a source of enjoyment. ❤️
Penguin Balloon Waddle
My son loves playing this game.
Give your kids a blown-up balloon and let them hold it between their legs. Make them try to walk across the room with the balloon in their legs – waddling, like how the penguins walk. 🎈
Pro Tip:
You can replace the balloon with a rubber ball.
Penguin Coloring Sheets
If your kids love to color, you can download and print coloring sheets with penguins for them to color.
Coloring sheets are an easy way to keep kids engaged and help improve their concentration. 🖍️
Penguin Sensory Bottle
Sensory bottles are great for kids to stimulate their senses and provide a calming experience. 🍶
In a clean bottle, add rice, white sand, baking powder, and fake snow to create a dry sensory bottle. Add water, oil, and color to make a liquid sensory bottle. Add the materials to the bottle – penguin miniatures, beads, glitter, and whatever else you like.
Penguin Egg Carton Miniature
Repurpose old egg cartons to turn them into penguins for your kids. 🥚
Cut the individual cups out of the egg carton. Let your kids paint the cups with black acrylic paint.
Cut the nose and feet from orange-colored paper and the tummy from white paper. Glue the paper shapes and add googly eyes onto the egg carton cup to make an adorable penguin.
Penguin Bookmark
Make a bookmark that is perfect for kids who love penguins and reading.
Cut out bookmark shapes from thick black paper. Kids can draw and paint tiny penguins on the bookmarks.
They can also add stickers of penguins to decorate the bookmarks. Punch a hole and add a ribbon to complete your penguin bookmark. 🔖
Penguin Corner Bookmark
My son enjoyed making these corner bookmarks with penguins to add to his favorite books. 📚
Make a simple corner bookmark from black-colored paper using a craft tutorial. Cut two white circles for the eyes, an orange triangle for the nose, a white portion for the tummy, and two orange hearts for the penguin’s feet. Glue them on the black bookmark to make a cute penguin corner bookmark.
Penguin Popsicle Bookmarks
Use wooden popsicle sticks to create penguin bookmarks for your kids. 📔
Kids can paint a popsicle stick with black color. Glue a tiny circle for the head and an oval for the tummy on the popsicle stick.
Add orange-colored felt pieces to make the feet. You can also include a scarf for the penguin using a blue strip of paper twisted around the popsicle stick.
Penguin Parts Chart
Learning about the animals and birds you love is a fascinating process.
Print a chart with a penguin and label its parts. Teach your kids about the different parts of the penguins and how they help the penguins. 👀
Penguin Puppets
Put on a puppet show at home with penguin puppets for your kids to enjoy.
Cut and glue two circles for the body and head, a white circle for its belly, an orange triangle for its nose, and googly eyes. Attach a popsicle stick to make a penguin puppet. 🎭
Penguin Stone Painting
Elevate the stones lying around your house with some adorable penguin designs. 🖌️
Collect and clean stones with smooth surfaces in different sizes. Use acrylic paint to draw penguins on the cleaned stones. These can be used as paperweights or as decor pieces.
Pro Tip:
You can make an entire family of stone penguins with different types of penguins.
Penguin Origami
My son enjoys doing origami in general, but particularly making penguins.
Follow the instructions from a tutorial to make a simple origami penguin. Glue googly eyes for its eyes. Make the penguins in different colored papers. ✂️
Pro Tip:
You can tie a string through the origami penguins and thread them to a stick to make a penguin mobile to put up in your kids’ room.
Penguin Drawing
Teach your kids how to draw these lovable aquatic birds with a step-by-step guide. ✍️
Print or draw an easy guide with sequential steps and drawings on how to draw a penguin. Kids can recreate them on paper and also color them.
Apart from being a simple drawing tutorial, it also helps improve their control over the pencil.
Penguin Paper Plate
A fun and exciting craft your kids can make that doubles as decor for your room. 🍽️
Kids can paint a paper plate with black acrylic paint. Cut a white colored circle for the tummy, an orange colored triangle for the beak, two orange colored hearts for the feet, and two black colored long ovals for the wings.
Glue them on the painted paper plate to complete the adorable bird.
Pro Tip:
You can elevate the paper plate with string art made with yarn for the tummy portion.
Penguin Ink Blot Painting
My son loves inkblot painting, so we did one with a penguin design.
Fold a thick sheet of paper in half. Kids can add blots of black paint to resemble the outline of a penguin and an orange line for the feet to one side of the paper.
Fold the paper in half and press down the sides well. Open it back and add googly eyes and a triangle nose to complete the inkblot painting. 🎨
This activity is a great way to introduce kids to the symmetry concept.
Penguin Pen Stand
Kids can make a pen stand with penguins for their study table.
Kids can paint empty toilet rolls with black paint and stick them on a cardboard circle to make the pen stand.
Glue googly eyes, a triangle nose, a white tummy, and feet on the toilet roll to make it into a penguin. ✒️
Penguin Counting Activity
Make learning numbers and counting fun by adding penguin cards to the process.
Use a template to cut out penguin-shaped outlines on small pieces of thick paper. Label the penguins from 1 to 10 and use them to help kids count and recognize numbers. Laminate them to make them more long-lasting. 🔢
Penguin Shape Game
Identifying and learning the names of shapes with penguins was an activity my son loved.
Cut out the body of the penguins in different shapes – square, rectangle, triangle, and so on. Make them in pairs for kids to identify and match the similar-looking shape of the penguins together. ⭕️
Penguin Cotton Ball Art
My son loves making this art with fluffy cotton balls.
Draw and cut an outline of a penguin from thick black-colored paper. Apply glue on the area of the tummy and Get your kids to fill it with cotton balls. Add the eyes, ears, and feet to complete the penguin. 🖼️
Pro Tip:
Another way to do this is by filling the body area of the penguin with cotton balls and adding a white paper oval for the tummy.
Penguin and Fish Correspondence Game
Draw and cut outlines of penguins from thick sheets of paper. Cut the penguins into two halves – on one half, write down numbers from 1 to 10, and on the other half, draw the same number of fish as the number written.
Make your kids complete the penguins by matching the number written with the corresponding number of fish. This game helps them learn one-to-one correspondence in an easy way. 🎣
Penguin Leap Game
Penguins can leap out of the water, going up to 6ft high in the air before they land on the ground.
Kids can try to jump like the penguins in this fun game you can play at home. 📏
Stick a small piece of tape measuring 6 ft on the wall. Kids can try jumping high to touch the marked spot, and you can measure and note the highest point they can reach.
Penguin Hop Game
A fun game to get your kids on their feet and moving! 👾
Draw and cut random shapes on white paper to resemble ice floats. Imagine the floor as icy and cold water, while the paper shapes are the ice floats.
Kids can hop on the ice floats like the penguins do to avoid falling into the open water.
Penguin Lacing Cards
My son enjoys lacing card activities that are super fun to make.
Draw and cut an outline of a penguin on a thick sheet of paper. Punch holes along the edges of the outline. Kids can use a colored thread or ribbon to lace through the punched holes to complete the penguin outline. 🧵
Pro Tip:
You can turn these lacing card penguins into ornaments, greeting cards, or bookmarks.
Penguin Fingerprint Art
Get your fingers messy and make adorable little penguins with fingerprints.
Kids can dip their fingers in paint and stamp their fingerprints on paper to make the outlines of the penguins. Use colored markers to add details like the eyes, ears, and wings to complete the penguin. ☝🏼
Pro Tip:
Kids can make a family of penguins with fingerprints. Turn these into cards and bookmarks to give to friends and family.
Penguin Sensory Tray
Create a sensory tray with dry white rice to mimic the snowy landscape that the penguins live in. Add penguin toys, blue marbles, and beads to the sensory tray. 📥
Sensory trays are beneficial in stimulating the senses and letting kids experience a sense of calmness.
Penguin Feed the Fish Game
A fun game where your kids feed the hungry penguin with fish. This game helps them improve their counting skills. 🎏
Make a penguin out of an empty paper roll. Draw and cut small fish shapes from colored paper. Kids can feed the hungry penguin the number of fish corresponding to the number you want them to count.
Penguin Word Search Puzzle
My son loves doing word search puzzles. 🔎
Print out a word search template with numerous words associated with penguins and their lives – snow, ice, wings, jump, etc. Kids can complete the word search by finding the list of hidden words related to penguins.
Penguin Ice Skating
This activity is one of the activities that gets my son excited every time we plan to do it – ice skating penguins on an ice rink. ⛸️
Fill water in the baking tray and freeze it to create an ice rink. Fill an ice cube tray with water, make toys stand upright in the water, and freeze it.
Take out both frozen trays from the freezer. Kids can hold the penguin ice cubes to make them skate on the baking tray ice rink.
Penguin Button Art
A simple activity to make penguins with buttons. Kids can improve their fine motor skills while doing this craft. 🧮
Draw an outline of a penguin on a white painting canvas. Kids can paint the inside spaces of the penguin with acrylic paints. They can then glue buttons of the same color matching the painted areas to complete the penguin.
Penguin Paper Cups
Transform your ordinary paper cups into penguins that kids can play with.
Get your kids to paint a paper cup with black acrylic paint. Turn the cup upside down and glue the features and parts of the penguin with colored paper shapes to make a penguin. 🐧
Penguin Documentary
Watch a documentary on penguins with your kids. Watching these documentaries and shows will help kids get a closer look at penguins and their lives – how these birds live on ice, interact with other penguins, and survive in their cold habitat. 🎥
Penguin Books
My son loves reading books about penguins and their lives. 📖
Buy books about penguins for your kids to read from. Pick a book with more visuals than text, as kids lean more toward books with pictures and illustrations. Storybooks and picture books can make your kids discover more about these aquatic birds.
Penguin Facts
A fun fact activity for kids to learn more about these aquatic birds.
Churn out some interesting facts about penguins that will intrigue your kids and also help them learn more about these birds living on the ice. 🧊
Penguin Art
Time to get your hands messy with a fun art activity! 🎨
Let your kids unleash their creativity and artistic abilities with this art activity. Make them draw and paint penguins in their unique style using picture references if needed.
Conclusion
I hope you enjoyed reading the list of penguin activities I’ve done with my kids.
Please let me know in the comments below if you liked the activities and would try any of these at home with your kids. 😇
I’m a former teacher (and mother of Two Childs) with a background in child development. Here to help you with play-based learning activities for kids. ( Check my Next startup Cledemy.Com)