Counting Penguins Book

Our Counting Penguins book will help your preschoolers practice counting, number recognition, and writing numbers through twenty!

Add this book to your penguin preschool activities.

Did you know counting penguins is actually a thing? Every year in Antarctica, a group of scientists conducts a penguin census to check on the health and welfare of the species.

Using our counting penguins book, your child can pretend play being an Antarctic scientist and practice counting numbers to twenty.

Counting Penguins Book

This counting book is a fun way to practice counting for an important cause, and it is a cool way to inspire your preschool child to count — because counting makes a difference!

How to use our penguin counting book.

To create a truly engaging penguin counting experience for your kids, begin by printing our penguin counting book.

Watch a video of counting penguins together. This YouTube video of counting penguins, shows the scientist start counting at 1:06.

Your child will also be fascinated by this video of King Penguins. Once you’ve watched the videos, count penguins together as the scientists do!

The pages of our penguin counting book build on each other. Start by counting one penguin. Build up to counting twenty penguins.

Work on the concept of how many and one-to-one correspondence. Finish by working on learning to write the numbers 1-10.

The book has forty pages to help your child learn to count and develop a concrete understanding of counting, written numbers, and number words.

Counting is the beginning of your child’s understanding of math. Numbers mean something, but sometimes little ones have a hard time realizing that the number names aren’t just meaningless words.

At first, they learn to count to three by rote. Eventually, children realize that each number has a specific meaning.

Use the pages of our penguin counting book to build and demonstrate this concept to your child as you practice counting numbers to twenty.

Hands-On Counting and Penguin Play with the Penguin Counting Book.

Adding hands-on elements to our counting book is a great way to give the concept of numbers a more concrete meaning for your child.

I love these penguin counters or these penguin erasers. As you count each page, you can place one counter or eraser on each penguin on the page, to help your child keep track of where they are and to practice one-to-one correspondence.

If you don’t want to purchase penguins for this activity, you could use m&ms or dry cereal loops or “feed the penguins” with goldfish crackers.

If you want to get hands-on, but don’t want to use objects such as penguins or food, you can have your child tap each penguin as they count it.

Your child will be counting penguins long after the penguin counting book is put away.

Of course, you can also get really elaborate and make some of these penguin snacks for counting.

The role of pretend play in counting.

Pretend Play you are the Antarctic Scientists. Dress up in warm coats, head outside, and count penguins in the snow or cold! Keep an “official” count, and mimic the scientists in the video you watched.

Pretend play helps your preschool child learn problem-solving, cooperation, communication skills and so much more. In fact, pretend play builds a bridge between head knowledge with direct skills.

In other words, pretend play can be the link that helps your child form a connection between the number words and the concrete meaning of a number. Pretend play is an incredibly powerful tool for preschool educators.

Tips to make pretend play even more powerful as a learning tool.

When you engage in pretend play with your child use rich, descriptive language. Talk about what you are doing in your pretend role. Work collaboratively to solve a problem (like counting all the penguins in the penguin counting book), and really listen to what your child is saying.

Follow your child’s lead as much as possible. For instance, ask your child how you should start counting the penguins. Don’t “take over” unless your child is struggling with pretend.

If that happens, you can make suggestions or ask leading questions and get the pretend play flowing again. Children have a short attention span, so pretend play doesn’t have hard and fast rules as to how long you have to play with your child. Continue playing until you are both ready to move on.

What else can you read with our penguin counting book?

Connecting literacy with math is another great way to bring counting alive for preschool kids. Read these books aloud together with your child to make strong math language connections.

Penguin Counting Books

• Five Flying Penguins
• Ten Playful Penguins
• 365 Penguins
• Counting Penguins

Books About Penguins

• All About Penguins
• Penguins

Fictional Penguin Stories

• A Penguin Story
• The Old Man and the Penguin: A True Story of Friendship

Fun Facts about Penguins To Share With Your Preschool Child as you count.

1. Most penguins live at the South Pole in Antarctica, but one species of penguin lives at the equator and prefers a temperate climate.
2. Penguins are birds that cannot actually fly, they use their flippers to swim.
3. The penguin diet consists of mostly fish and shrimp. That’s what they eat. They live the good life!
4. Penguins are black and white for camouflage.
5. Most penguins swim between 4 and 7 miles per hour, but penguins can swim as fast as 22 mph.
6. Penguins spend roughly half of their lives in water and half of their lives on land.

PRESCHOOL BOOKS ABOUT PENGUINS

Fill your book basket with a great collection of books about penguins. Most of these books can be found at your local library or used bookstore.

If you have a hard time finding them, you can order them through my Amazon affiliate links by clicking the images below.

Penguins – In Explore My World Penguins, curious kids ages 3 to 7 will be excited to learn about the delightful world of penguins: the extreme lengths they go to to care for their young and the relationship between baby penguins and their parents.

Tacky the Penguin – Tacky’s perfect friends find him annoying until his odd behavior saves the day.

If You Were a Penguin – In this simple, rhyming picture book, the youngest readers will learn about penguins. This is the perfect read-aloud for teachers and parents to share with young children as they imagine what life as a penguin is like!

Download your printables

Get your Counting Penguins Book in the shop here.

This activity pack includes twenty count and write pages. Kids will count penguins, read the number word, and write the numeral.

There are also eight pages on which kids will fill in ten-frames according to the number on the penguin’s belly at the beginning of the row. Kids will identify and build numbers 1-20.

You’ll find four pages encouraging children to count sets of penguins and write the number in the box in each set.

Finally, there are ten handwriting practice pages on which kids will trace numerals 1-10 and write those numerals on their own.

More penguin fun!