Penguin Activity Game: DIY Toddler Activity

When I first came across this "Feed the Penguin" game I was so excited to make it!  My son is totally into Penguins, thanks to the Swedish clay-mation show Pingu.  I also loved that you can use the fish for learning.  Since associating letters with words that start with the letter is a lot of fun for Liam (my son) right now, I decided to go with ABCs but you can also use numbers or shapes or words or pictures or whatever you can possibly come up with.  Admittedly, this activity did require a bit more parental help than some of the other projects that we have done, but my son was still able to be a constant part of the process and he has had SO much fun with the actual finished product.  I hope that you can enjoy it as much as we have so far!

Supplies:
Cardboard Box (about Graham Cracker box sized)
Construction Paper (Black, White, Orange)
Goggle Eyes (2)
Scissors
Tape (use good quality tape so that your wings stay attached)
Glue
Knife
*Optional: Glitter Glue (My son loves this stuff so we wrote out letters using it)

Directions:
Wrap the black construction paper around the box and tape it on. I only used 1 piece, so it didn't cover the top, bottom or the back of the box. But you can if you want to. 
Cut an oval shaped hole for the mouth with the knife.  Initially I tried to use scissors, but a knife worked SO much better. It doesn't have to be perfect, just big enough for the fish to fit in.  (You'll want to leave paper off the top of the box so that you can get the fish out after they get fed to the penguin.)
For the beak, cut a square out of orange construction paper. Then cut an oval shaped hole in the middle.  I found this was easiest with measuring it close to the hole that had previously been cut for the mouth.  Tape the beak onto the penguin.
Glue 2 googly eyes on the penguin (or cut eyes out of paper and glue them on).
Cut out a white oval for the stomach and glue it on.
Cut out 2 orange feet and glue them onto the bottom of the box.
Cut out 2 black, oval flaps for the wings and tape one on each side.

For the FISH:

Just draw a fish shape (easiest to draw an oval body with a triangle tail attached) onto a piece of paper and cut it out (Make sure it's small enough to fit in your penguin's mouth). Then use that fish as a template and draw some more fish on a piece of construction paper. Then place 2-3 MORE pieces of construction paper underneath and cut out the fish. (Saves time cutting out 3-4 at a time!)
Once you have all your fish, get a black marker and draw a dot for the eye and a little smile on each fish.
Then draw on whatever concept you want to teach: SHAPES, NUMBERS, LETTERS, MATH, WORDS, etc.  Because we used Glitter Glue to write out letters, I let them sit over night to dry completely. 
*Optional: For extra durability you can laminate (or use contact paper on) the fish so you can use them in other games later

Get your supplies out (don't mind the paint haha)

Wrap your box in black paper

Cut a mouth hole in the box with a knife

Cut a an orange square and an oval middle for the mouth and tape onto the box for the beak

Glue the Googly Eyes on

Showcase your gluing skills with glee

Clean up any excess glue

Cut an Oval out of white paper for the belly and glue it on

Check out how awesome it is looking so far

Cut out little orange feet

Glue the feet onto the bottom of the box

Cut out 2 long ovals for the wings and tape them on

Check out the finished penguin box in all it's glory

Cut out your fishies! 

Draw on an eye and a smile and write on whatever you would like, we did letters

If you would like to see our past DIY activities, check them out here:

Kool-Aid Dyed Pasta

Cardboard Owls

Alphabet Train

Make Your Own Rainstorm

Orange Sugar Scrub

Meditation Bottle

Alphabet Train Kid's Activity!

Today was a great day to try out one of the DIY activities that we have been looking at.  I have been wanting to try the one that is called the Alphabet Train!  I though that it would be a lot of fun and also a great learning experience for my son Liam.  It is really easy to do and requires minimal supplies.  You generally just use things around the house and the possibilities are endless.  You could come up with all kinds of different combinations if you played it 100 different times.  This took up about an hour to an hour and a half of our time go through the letters and looking around the house (mostly Liam's playroom and bed room) for stuff that we could use. 


Supplies:
 26 Sheets of Construction Paper (any paper will do)

Items from around the house that start with all of the letters in the alphabet!  

Directions: 
Draw Letters onto the paper and lay out the paper in a "train"!  Now go around and find the items that match up with the letters.  (We also added Letter flashcards so that it gave my son the opportunity to match up the letters from the flash cards with the letters on the paper and give him an idea of where to go from).  I would try to think of things around the house and send him in search of them!  This was so easy and so much fun!  I definitely recommend it to anyone with a child that likes to do things associated with the alphabet and it provides for a wide age range.

Set out the letters into a train, which can be quite fun

 Add the flashcards

Now go around the house to find stuff to place on each paper 

 Now you have the train all set up and you can go back through the letters for fun & learning

 Here are the items we used for each letter in case you are needing a place to start! 

A is for Apple, Asparagus, Airplane

B is for Butterfly, Bubbles, Binoculars, Book

C is for Crab, Car, Carrots, Camera

D is for Duck, Dog, Dolphin

E is for Elephant, Eeyore, Eyes

F is for Firetruck, Farmer, Fork, Flashlight

G is for Glove, Ghost, Glasses, Giraffe, Gas Station

H is for Hat, Helicopter, Hippo, Heart, Hammer

I is for Ice Cream

J is for Jack-in-the-box, Jam, Jack-o-lantern

K is for Kite, Key, Knife, Kale

L is for Lamb, Lion, Leaf, Lotion

M is for Mouse, Milk, Mouth, Moon, Monkey

N is for Nest, Nose, Nut

O is for Owl, Octopus, Orange

P is for Penguin, Phone, Pumpkin, Panda, Pear, Pepper

Q is for Quilt, Queen

R is for Rainbow, Rooster, Rabbit, Radio

S is for Star, Snake, Shark, Seahorse, Sun

T is for Train, Tiger, Tea, Tambourine

U is for Umbrella, Unicorn

V is for Violin, Van, Vacuum, Vitamin

W is for Whale, Whistle, Wasp, Worm, Watermelon

X us fir Xylophone

Y is for Yo-yo, Yogurt

Z is for Zebra