Freezing Penguins

Lonely penguins get cold!
Help them find their friends so they can warm each other up.

The bricks are penguins on an ice field – 5 lonely penguins are freezing in the cold. Find friends for the freezing penguins and place them next to each other for warmth.

Goals

This story introduces children to concepts such as left/right and hot/cold. It’s a great way to increase their vocabulary and knowledge of penguins, ice floes, the Earth and the poles.

The use of both hands should be stimulated
and encouraged as early as possible.
This game is a very simple activity
to reinforce the use of both hands.
The teacher places five freezing
penguins on the plate.
With one hand, the child has to find a penguin
and keep their fingers on it,
while with the other hand,
they take a brick from the bowl
and attach it
next to the penguin to warm it up.
The game continues until all of
the penguins
have a companion to keep them warm.
The story of warming up the cold,
lonely penguins makes this activity
fun and enriches children’s vocabulary
and stimulates their imagination.

The adult prepares

5 random bricks on a baseplate
5 random bricks in a bowl or a bag

Make a column with 5 vertical bricks. Start at the top left-hand corner, leave 2 and 3-stud spaces between them.

The children play

The child takes penguins from the bowl and place them on the right side, next to each freezing penguin. The second penguin will warm the freezing penguin up!

So let’s talk about penguins.
This is a penguin, an animal.
It has fur, it has one beak
here,
It has two arms
almost like these,
and two feet and maybe
I can tell you how penguins walk.
They walk like that.
And what do they do when they are cold?
“I’m cold!” The other pingouin come and they come together like that
to make everyone warm.
Do you see here,
it’s a lonely penguin.
Really really cold.
Ok, but, here we have friends.
and they can warm the other up.
So what do we do?
We take a penguin, and we attach it
next to his friend.
So they are together, not freezing anymore.
Do you want to help this one
finding a friend?
Take a friend
Ok, and add it
so it’s not cold anymore.
Here, close to this one? Press hard!
Ok now, they are three.
Can you add it here?
Ok, next to it ok!
Good. So we use two hands
one to feel where the penguin is,
the other to come next to it.
And press!
Look they are all happy!
Thank you!

Facilitation tips

Encourage the child to use both hands.
Start with more than 5 bricks on the baseplate.
Add more than one penguin and ask which one is the warmest and why.
Place the starter bricks randomly on the baseplate, so the child can add penguins to the left, top or bottom of the starting brick.