Try a FREE hands-on holiday activity here!
Are you looking for an engaging way to help your students practice literacy and math skills? These penguin activities for kindergarten are interactive, engaging, and educational. You can use these fun penguin activity ideas to plan a successful thematic unit this winter!
Your students will have fun practicing CVC word building with this penguin-themed phonics activity! They will use fish letters to make a CVC word that matches each picture.
Before learning all about penguins, it’s a good idea to have students write about what they know and what they wonder about penguins. Then, after reading non-fiction books about penguins, you can discuss what you have learned about penguins. This “Can, Have, Are” chart is a great way for students to organize this information!
As your class learns about penguins, there will definitely be new vocabulary! Students can organize this new knowledge in their own penguin vocabulary books. This printable book has space for the word, definition, and a drawing to help students remember the penguin vocabulary.
Reading fictional penguin books are a great way to practice story elements! You can read “Tacky the Penguin” with your class and then have students create a story elements mini reader.
Reading a book about a unique character like Tacky is a great way to discuss character traits! After discussing Tacky’s character traits together as a class, students can complete a graphic organizer.
Then they can create their own Tacky the Penguin craft! For this writing craftivity, students will write about Tacky’s character traits, then create a colorful shirt to create a lift-the-flap craftivity.
Another fun and educational penguin project for kindergarten is a penguin research book! This project includes a fun penguin craft for the cover and a table of contents.
Students will complete a variety of interactive pages to complete their research book.
It’s a great way for students to share with their families what they have learned about penguins.
Another way for students to share about what they have learned about penguins is with this adorable standing penguin craft! Students will write about different penguin facts, then attach them to a 3D penguin craft. These are so fun to display in the classroom!
After reading about both real and fictional penguins, your students can practice comparing and contrasting the two! Students can cut and paste different facts onto a Venn diagram, based on whether each fact applies to real penguins, Tacky the penguin, or both.
There are several interactive ways to help students visualize the process of taking away from the total in order to subtract. Students can use a subtraction mat, penguin cup, and goldfish crackers to model subtraction.
Students can also use a penguin bag to take away fish as they model subtraction equations. After acting out the subtraction equation with fish cards, they can write the answer below the corresponding flap.
There are even more engaging ways to practice subtraction with penguins! Students can practice solving subtraction equations with a penguin-themed worksheet. They can also sort subtraction equations by placing each fish card with the correct penguin.
You can also get your students up and moving with subtraction around the room! Place penguin cards around the classroom and have students find them. When they find a card, students will write and solve the subtraction equation on a recording sheet.
Teaching students how to cross out objects to model subtraction will help them move transition from using concrete objects for subtraction practice. You can practice this together as a class using cross out subtraction mats and recording sheets.
Students can then practice cross out subtraction using penguin and fish-themed printable worksheets.
Finally, students can create subtraction mini books to practice cross out subtraction equations as well as story problems.
Learning how to read and use a number line is an important skill that students will use to understand many math concepts in the future. Practicing subtraction with a number line is a great skill to include in your penguin unit!
You can have students model subtraction with you as they have Tacky the Penguin hop backwards on a number line. After practicing this skill on dry erase mats, students can then apply their knowledge to practice worksheets with number lines.
Help your students deepen their understanding of subtraction with story problems! They can illustrate and solve a variety of penguin story problems in their own subtraction book.
Your students will also love to create their own subtraction story problem and craft! These penguin math crafts look great on a bulletin board!
Students also love to practice subtraction with games! This double spinner activity has students spin the first number and then subtract the second number that they spin. After figuring out the answer, students will color in the corresponding fish on their recording sheet. They will keep playing until they have colored in all of their fish! Students can also write and solve the equations on a recording sheet.
We all know how much kindergarteners love math activities that include a snack! Give each student a small cup full of colored goldfish crackers. They will use a mat to sort the goldfish by color and then graph their results. There is also a worksheet where students can interpret and use their data in different ways.
All of the activities pictured above (and more!) can be found in my printable bundle of Penguin Activities for Kindergarten. In this resource, you’ll find a variety of literacy and math activities with a fun penguin theme! Plus, this bundle includes a unit-at-a-glance document that outlines how you can put together these hands-on activities for a two-week penguin unit.
If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this resource, you can find it in the A Spoonful of Learning shop or on TPT.
If you’d like to use these hands-on activities for your next penguin thematic unit, be sure to save this post! Add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest so you can quickly find these ideas when you’re looking for penguin activities for kindergarten.
These alphabet books will have students dive deep into learning about each letter of the alphabet while eager to see what activity they get to complete next!
