Penguin Sensory Play

This week I’m excited to be joining some great blogging friends to bring you an awesome collection of winter play ideas. In the past we’ve shared fall, Halloween, and Christmas activities, and this time we’re working on giving you some fun ideas to try on these cold winter days. This series is hosted by Nothing if Not Intentional, Fun-A-Day!, Play Trains!, My Nearest and Dearest, Buggy and Buddy and our site.

Penguin Salt Tray

We don’t have snow, but we like to pretend we do in as many ways as possible. This simple penguin sensory play salt tray was so easy to put together, and the kids loved making it “snow” for the penguins.

GET A FULL WEEK OF PENGUIN THEME ACTIVITIES IN OUR  PRESCHOOL PENGUIN LESSON PLANS

Materials

• Penguin Toob
• Epsom salt
• Blue glass gems
• Container-ours is the base of a cake carrier that we have, but whatever you have will work just fine.

My girls adore penguins, so the moment they saw this invitation sitting out one morning they decided to dive right in.  Tinker “helped” all the penguins dig for treasure. I had to laugh at all their little penguin bodies sticking out of the “snow.”

After a while Lovey couldn’t stand it anymore, and she had to rescue them.

Salt trays can be very soothing. Both of the girls sat for a long time letting the salt flow through their hands so that it could “snow” on the penguins.

And when they were done Tinker sweetly put them all to bed with a kiss and squish face first into the snow. 😉

Remember to grab some penguin books to read along with playtime. Our penguin book list includes ficton and nonfiction book suggestions, plus a free printable with the book list and a writing activity sheet.

Visit the other sites participating in the Winter Play Days series to find more fun ways to play.

Winter Wonderland Small World from Buggy and Buddy

Snowed in? Make Snow Cream! from Nothing if Not Intentional

Winter Train Play in the Snow from Play Trains!

Winter Forest Small World from My Nearest and Dearest

Cookie Cutter Snowman Art from Fun-A-Day!

PRINTABLE PENGUIN THEME LESSON PLANS

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. We have a variety of lesson plan sets that work well as winter themes. Each set includes over 30 playful learning activities related to the theme, and we’ve provided different versions for home preschool families and classroom teachers so all activities are geared directly toward your needs.

This set currently includes active hands-on learning ideas and the following printables:

1. Fish Pattern Cards (in color and b/w)
2. Iceberg Shape Mats and Iceberg Penguin Shape Matching Game (in color and b/w)
3. If We Were Penguins Class Book Covers and Page Templates
4. Penguin Color Matching Mats and Color Fish to Sort (in color and b/w)
5. Uppercase Adult Penguin and Lowercase Chick Letter Matching Set (in color and b/w)
6. Iceberg Penguin Name Hop Activity with Editable Penguin Name Plates (in color and b/w)
7. Build an Iceberg Counting Activity Number Cube (in color and b/w)
8. Penguin Ten-Frames Pre-Filled with 1-10 (in color and b/w)
9. Blank 10 and 20 Frames (in color and b/w)
10. Penguin Numbers 1-20 (in color and b/w)
11. Penguin Vocabulary Cards (in color and b/w)
12. Penguin Science Journal (in color and b/w)
13. Real Penguin Photos

GET YOUR LESSON PLANS

Also available on Teachers Pay Teachers.