Foam Penguin Craft For Kids

***This is a preschool craft, my toddler helped me with it but I did 95% of this one, don’t be fooled by the picture he was taking the foot OFF! ***

Gather your materials. For this craft I used 3 foam sheets in white, black and orange, scissors, a pen, and glue.
Draw the outline of the penguin on the black foam sheet. I eyeballed it. Also, you could easily use construction paper instead of the foam sheets.
Cut the outline out.
Using the black outline, trace it onto the while sheet, and then when cutting it out do so an inch INSIDE the line, so it’s it the same shape but smaller.
Cut out small round eyes out of the leftover black foam/paper.
Draw a foot, double the foam so you have two layers and cut.
Cut out a small triangle for the beak.
Start gluing! ( can you tell he’s taking the feet off ? ) if you are doing this with little ones I would marker on the eyes and beak because these small foam pieces are tempting to chew on and choke!
If you are doing this with an older child , trace the outlines with a good marker and have them cut along it.

One final note to parents, when you are doing cut and paste crafts with your kids, try really hard not to “correct” them on where to glue the eyes, or feet etc… let them put them where they want. Crafts like these are fun but not very creative so let them put their own twist on the craft with a foot where the nose should be. It’s about the process NOT the product.

Penguin Song

( to the tune of I’m a little Teacup)

I’m a Little Penguin!

I’m a little penguin,
black and white,
short and wobbly,
an adorable sight!
I can’t fly at all,
but I love to swim,
so I’ll waddle to the water,
and dive right in!

Books

Our book lists contain affiliate links.

The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins is a good nonfiction book written like a story about penguins and more specifically about how the father penguin cares for the egg. The illustrations in the book are wonderful and will likely appeal to younger children as well as the target 4-6-year-olds audience that the text is geared towards. I have used this in a Pre K class and by the end of the year, the children were ready and able to sit and pay attention to the whole book.

Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester is such a cute and funny story, your kids will love it! Tacky is an odd bird but when hunters come to get some pretty penguins is funny odd ways of doing things turn off the hunters and saves Tacky and his perfectly not odd companions. This is a sweet look at being different and being happy as pie about being different!

Little Penguin’s Tale by Audrey Wood is a funny cautionary tale about a curious and wild penguin. When the tale almost ends in doom and gloom the narrator changes the end a little bit, so the readers and other little penguins aren’t too sad. Still, the message is clear that you can’t ignore the rules without some consequences!