Confessions from Toddler School: Penguins

Penguins were one of Cohen's first loves and they are still definitely a favorite around here! Fun fact: Cohen's love of penguins was what inspired this toddler school journey of mine and it was our very first theme ever! 🐧

Unfortunately we didn't get to do all of our activities this week due to a rousing emergency room visit (everyone is fine but this sick season is no joke!) We've been resting and reading a lot of books instead. 💙📕💙

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here.

Books:

We did a lot of book reading this week due to this lovely illness! There are so many amazing penguin books out there and it is really hard to pick a favorite but these two get the most laughs and repeats!

Penguin Gets the Hiccups - This book is beyond adorable! If you haven't read it, it's about a cute little penguin who gets the hiccups from eating chili. He tries all kinds of tricks to get rid of them but nothing works. The book elicits child participation to help scare the hiccups away too! Super cute.  But make sure you have your fake hiccup sound ready to go because you're going to need it!

Personal Penguin - Who doesn't want a personal penguin!? I mean seriously, how adorable woult hat be? Almost as adorable as this penguin book by Sandra Boynton! It's actually a song! So we sing it all the time. And I mean ALL the time. It's about a little penguin that just wants to be a hippos personal penguin! 💕

Activities:

Penguin Habitats

I always love how this sensory table turns out! The pictures really don't do it justice. We use instant snow and lots of ice! Every night I let the boys collect cups/tupperware/bowls, hollow toys (anything that can hold water) and we will with water to freeze for the morning! Then all we do is throw in these little penguin figurines.

Feed the Penguin

I love how adaptable this activity is from the variety of containers and penguin shapes to the skill on the fish!

First choose any empty container and turn it into a penguin! This time I used an empty cracker box but I've used cereal boxes, shoe boxes, milk jugs and even an empty cottage cheese container! They always turn out super cute. Just use construction paper and voila! Penguin 🐧

**Tip: Don't forget to think through an emptying strategy once the penguin has eaten all the fish...I learned this the hard way the first time I made one. Don't be like me. **

Next print out your fish and choose your skill! You can get these fish in the printable activity pack below or find your own! I like to laminate my fish so I can switch up the targeted skill as much as I want! These bad boys have lasted me 3 years if you can believe it! The activity pack includes the colored fish as well as a blank white set for you to write your own skill on!

**Tip: Bend the fish tails up so they're easier to pick up off the ground. There's nothing worse than watching your little one struggle and then get frustrated and give up before it even starts!**

Penguin Movements Obstacle Course

This was so much fun! We really needed some fun body movement activities after being cooped up for so long. This did not disappoint! Turns out his love of penguins perfectly translated into the love of being a penguin. 

I used black masking tape to mark off the obstacle course and then these cards to label the activities! See my IG highlights to see how we set them up!

Want any of this week's printables?  You can grab them here!

Up next week: Money! 💰  

Confessions from Toddler School: Penguins!

Man, these past couple of weeks have been rough! First, we had a crazy snowpocalypse that left us snowed in for over a week! And let me tell you, being snowed in with a very active toddler is not for the faint of heart! The snow finally melted just in time for Cohen to start getting his 2 year molars (waaaaaay early) and now he has a cold. I haven't slept more than an hour or 2 each night for a week. I feel like I deserve some sort of award here. 😪💤

Never a dull moment. #parenthood #whereami #canisleepyet

Thank goodness I had so many fun penguin activities planned to keep us entertained! And the snow actually added a lot to the fun!

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here!

Feed the Penguin: This was probably one of Cohen's favorites! He pulls it off the shelf several times a day! I made this little penguin out of an old frosting container and some construction paper (and then covered it with packing tape to protect it)! He did have a 3-D nose but someone got hungry. 😂 The fish are part of my Penguin Toddler Unit! I laminated them for durability and bent the tails up so they were easier to pick up!

We started with just red and slowly added in other colors for
color recognition practice.

Alphabet Flip Game: This game was definitely over Cohen's head (especially the taking turns part) but it was still fun. I chose a handful of letters to start. We would take turns flip over all the cards and say the letter names as we went. You can also get these alphabet cards in my Penguin Toddler Unit.

Real Snow Sensory Table: This is where all that snow came in handy! We brought some indoors to use in our sensory table with our penguins! If you aren't as lucky as we were to get real snow, you can use this fake snow.

Bonus: You don't have to wear clothes to play with snow indoors! win-win! 

Painting Igloos: I actually stumbled upon this activity while on IG one day and it fit perfectly with what we were doing! The idea comes from Mrs. Plemons Kindergarten! You take those little fruit cups (that we had in our sensory bin above) and freeze water in them. Then use water colors to paint them while they melt! Mrs. Plemon's is a genius! You should definitely check out her stuff!

Penguin Launch: Cohen gets all the credit for this game! He got a Hot Wheels Launcher for Christmas and found that he could also use it to launch his penguins. We had so much fun with this! You can't see it but I put colored landing pads at the end for some color practice. But you could also do letters, numbers, spell out child's name... The possibilities are endless!

Torn Paper Penguin Art: This is another activity in my Penguin Toddler Unit but you can easily do it without! Just draw a penguin body on a white paper and you're ready to go! My son helped tear the black paper pieces and glue them on. 

We then traced his hands (I can't believe he cooperated with that) and then I added the face. It turned out super cute!

Excuse the black background, someone had serious
 mom brain and didn't think that one through...

Painting Snow: As you can see we ditched the paint brushes and used our hands. And due to being snowed in (and out of food coloring) our color options were limited but it was still fun and it kept him entertained forever!

Penguin Pom Push: This is one of my favorites! I have done this before with different themes/images and Cohen absolutely loves it! It's such a great quiet time activity and is amazing fine motor practice. He's a pro now! 

You can find this penguin image in my Penguin Toddler Unit. It fits any standard shoe box. I didn't have any shoe boxes (looks like I need to go shoe shopping!😍) so I made one out of a cereal box. I will be posting that DIY soon!

Outings this week:

Children's museum - We were able to get out after the snow finally cleared and boy were we ready! The Children's Museum had a penguin snow globe room which fit our theme perfectly! They had little penguin hats, igloos and white loofahs everywhere! He had so much fun. Just look at that smile! 💓

Sledding - We took advantage of the snow and did some sledding! We happen to live on a really steep hill so we went out and practiced our penguin belly sliding! 

📙📘📗 Our favorite books this week 📗📘📙

If you follow this blog or my IG you know that Cohen is obsessed with books! As a teacher, that makes me so happy! Here are some of our favorites from the week:

Your Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton

Little Penguin Gets the Hiccups by Tadgh Bentley

Penguin in Love by Salina yoon

My Life in the Wild: Penguin by Meredith Costain

(although reading them 500 times a day can be a bit much) 

So there you have it! Our first OFFICIAL toddler school unit! I'm so excited to be starting this new adventure and I can't wait to see where it takes me! Leave me some comments! I'd love to get some feedback 🙂

Up next week: Cars! 🚗