Shape Penguin Craft Kids Will Love for Valentine’s Day
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Have you ever wanted to try building a paper penguin craft from just shapes? Here’s a Valentine’s Day craft for kids that’s lots of fun and looks adorable too.
Not only will kids learn shapes during this activity, but gluing is a great skill that helps develop hand eye coordination and fine motor skills.
For this craft we used hearts, circles, ovals, triangles, rectangles, and semi-circles.
Since some of the shapes have different sizes, we used this as a learning opportunity to go over large and small sorting.
Riley and I love crafting together, especially holiday crafts.
Since it’s cold out and Valentine’s Day is coming up, a penguin activity is just what we needed.
This penguin shapes craft was the perfect arctic animal activity to do with my preschooler!
We also have a penguin touch and feel book that my kids love that added a sensory book element to this craft.
I made an extra shapes penguin craft the night before so Riley could see what it will look like after she put it together.
I do this whenever I don’t have a picture of what the craft looks like.
We also looked at pictures of different penguins that live in the snow.
This is a fun opportunity to get on YouTube and check out some fun penguin videos.
Or read Be Brave, Little Penguin by Giles Andreae together.
Fun Shape Penguin Craft For This Shapes Penguin Craft, You’ll Need:
Scissors
Pencil
Paper (white, black, orange, blue/green, and red/pink)
Glue
Black Marker
How to Prepare the Shapes for Your Penguin Craft
First I drew the shapes on construction paper.
I made two circles on black paper, one for the penguin’s head and the other for the penguin’s wings.
Then I drew a large oval on white paper for the body and two small circles for the eyes.
I drew three triangles on orange paper for the beak and feet, and two small rectangles for the legs.
Since it’s almost Valentine’s Day I decided to add a heart and fish for the penguin.
To make the heart I cut out big and little hearts on red and pink paper.
For the fish I used blue paper and cut out an oval and a triangle.
I had some scrapbook blue paper that I thought would give the fish a little texture.
Once everything for the penguin craft was drawn, I cut the shapes out.
If your child is good with scissors you can have them cut it instead.
Then I took one of the black circles and cut it in half to form two semi-circles for the penguin’s wings.
I did all this prep the night before we did the activity so I wouldn’t have an antsy 3 year old waiting for me to cut everything out.
How to Make Your Shape Penguin Craft
First came the gluing!
One of my preschooler’s favorite things to do.
We started by gluing the head circle onto the white oval body.
Every time she picked up a shape I asked her what it was.
She knows her shapes well but we still like to review them from time to time.
Kids learn more than we realize just by hearing us name things and talk about colors, numbers, shapes or concepts.
And it’s even better if you can get your kids to say these things outlays also.
Next we glued the two small white circles and one orange triangle onto the penguin’s face to form the eyes and beak.
Then we glued each semi-circle onto the sides of the large white oval (penguin’s body) to form the wings.
Next we glued the orange triangles onto the bottom of the orange rectangle to form the penguin’s feet.
Then we glued the top of the rectangles onto the bottom of the penguin’s body to form the legs.
Add a Little Valentine’s Day Touch
Once the penguin was complete it was time to add fish and heart shapes to make it a Valentine’s Day craft!
Since penguins enjoy eating fish I thought it would be a good idea to show Riley that an oval and triangle together can look like a fish.
She glued the triangle tip to the end of the oval and then glued it on the penguin’s wing.
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We thought a fish was a lovely Valentine’s Day gift for the little penguin.
Last she glued the little heart onto the big heart and then onto the other wing.
Finally I used a black marker to draw small circles onto the penguin’s eyes and a face on the fish.
You could use googly eyes for this part too for added fun.
There you go!
Our adorable shapes penguin craft was finished.
Riley was so proud of her work.
She truly loves crafting.
Extend Your Activity With A Book Or Fun Facts
After our shapes craft was done, I asked Riley some questions about penguins.
We talked about what penguins eat, where they live, and whether they fly or swim.
Penguins are fascinating birds!
Then we read our touch and feel penguin book.
I love when I can use a craft as a learning activity or even incorporate a book to tie it together.
