penguins — Storytime — Teeny Tiny Library

One of my coworkers is OBSESSED with penguins. I try to do a penguin storytime in the winter so she can find cool penguin crafts or color sheets for me. There are a lot of penguin books I love, like Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins and Tacky by Helen Lester. I picked two different books this time around and I'm not sure that the storytime overall was as successful.

BOOKS:

We read A Penguin Story by Antoinette Portis and Penguin Problems by Jory John. I started with Penguin Problems which I don't think I prefaced enough. I think more dialogue before the story would have helped - "What problems do you think penguins have? Are they like your problems?" I only had one storytime this week because of a snow day, and my kids who come on Wednesday are pretty quiet. A Penguin Story is awesome. I really like it and it went over well. I think that I would keep using Emperor's Egg and A Penguin Story for future penguin storytimes.

FLANNELBOARD:

Between stories, I used my penguin flannels from before and we sang a bathtime counting song.

1 little penguin going for a swim
Knock, knock, splash, splash
Come on in!

[Repeat up to five (or however many penguin flannels you have)]

SONG:

Sesame Street has some of the greatest songs of all time for kids. I had found a Caspar Babypants song about penguins that was good, but then I listened to this one again (which I have used before) and the Caspar Babypants just can't compete. "Doing the Penguin" is great because it has ACTIONS! So many times when I put the music on and don't give kids a prop (shaker, scarf, bells, etc) they have no idea what to do with themselves. I want to get them up and moving around so sometimes I'll make up my own dance moves (which amuses the parents to no end). I do like songs that have actions built in though. This is a great example of that.

CRAFT:

We made some penguin paper bag puppets. I had a lot of options for crafts for penguins, but I was feeling like a paper bag puppet was in order. We hadn't done one in a while and kids REALLY like making interactive crafts - things they can play with or use later on. Here's one of my penguin puppets.

Penguin storytime was a HUGE hit here.

BOOKS: The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins and Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester

The Emperor’s Egg worked really well for this age group – it wasn’t too wordy or too science-y. I did omit almost all of the small text print. The kids were really engaged. I have a few boys who are really into nonfiction so this was right up their alley. I thought about using Sergio Makes a Splash and Pierre the Penguin, but opted for the other two.

FLANNEL/FINGERPLAY:

I’m not sure now where I got this rhyme from (I apologize, if it’s yours please let me know so I can correct it), but the kids really liked it

Five Penguins
One penguin in the bath going for a swim
Knock knock (clap hands twice)
Splash Splash (slap knees twice)
Come on in!

We counted up to five penguins in the bath. Here are a picture of my flannels which I free-handed from a picture of penguins on SLC Book Boy’s blog.

CRAFT:

Looped Paper Penguins.

The craft was a hit. There were a few too many pieces for some of our younger kids, but everyone loved that the penguins could stand up at the end. I found the picture of these guys on Pinterest and then created my own pieces. As kids were finishing up their craft, they could come up to our giant penguin Zeke and have their height measured next to him. They LOVED the big penguin.

You can't really tell from this picture, but Zeke is life-sized. I made him the height of a real emperor penguin just to show kids that penguins actually are tall. Got a little STEM in there too with measuring and learning about penguins.