Handprint Penguins

A fun winter activity that involves love of snow, feathery friends, and arts and crafts! This preschool aged activity is perfect for a short break to get creative and learn about penguins and practice counting, shapes, and fine motor skills. It stimulates the artsy side of children and gets them thinking about aquatic birds.

Fun Facts about Penguins:

-Did you know not all penguins live in cold areas? Some live in Africa!

-Penguins can swim at speeds of 25 miles

per hour and can hold their breath for 6 whole minutes.

-The most common type (species) of penguins are macaroni penguins

Supplies:

-Construction paper (black, white, blue, orange)

-Scissors

-Googly eyes

-Marker

-Pencil

-Glue

Activity Steps:

Step 1: We are going to start our activity! Get ready to make a super fun penguin craft. First, get a piece of construction paper that you want your background to be. Blue is a great color to choose to represent the sky.

Step 2: Second, use a white piece of paper to draw piles of snow onto it. Picture how cold this snow would be! Have you ever played in snow before? Penguins love to!

Helpful Tip: draw this out with a pencil first. Make two dips/humps on the paper. Cut this out and glue it on the blue sheet of construction paper at the bottom.

Step 3: Next, take a black piece of construction paper and trace both of your hands. Trace your right hand and then your left hand. If you cannot outline each hand by yourself, don’t worry, just ask for help!

Cut out both of your handprints with scissors. This is going to be the body of your penguin.

Step 4: Now, you are going to glue your handprints onto the snow of your construction paper. Face them upside down so your fingers are facing the bottom of the paper.

Step 5: Glue on your googly eyes on the top of your handprint penguin. Don’t forget to do both your right handprint penguin and your left handprint penguin. This means you need 4 eyes in total.

Step 6: Next, cut out two diamond shapes from your orange construction paper. This will be the penguins beaks, one for each side. Make them a little bit bigger than your thumb. Fold your triangle in half, and glue the bottom half of the beak to the middle of your penguins face.

Tip: for a diamond shape, draw two triangles, one pointing up and one pointing down, so they mirror each other.

Step 7: Draw and cut out two white circles. This should be the size of the width (from side to side) of your handprint. A helpful hint is to measure the palm of your hand! These are going to be the white stomachs of your penguins. Glue them on the middle of your penguins.

Step 8: Now, don’t forget to draw snowflakes in the background so your penguins have the perfect weather to chill in.

Helpful Tip: an easy way to draw snowflakes is to draw and X and then a line down the middle of your X and one more line across the X.

Step 9: If you want to get extra creative, you can draw hats and scarves on your penguins if you want to! Make sure these penguins stay warm in the cold snow you drew!

Step 10: Enjoy the art you just made! And don’t forget to tell your friends and family about all the fun facts you learned about penguins.