Take an old egg carton to create an adorable waddle of penguins with this egg carton penguin craft. This simple craft is perfect for doing alongside a study of birds, Antarctica, or even the letter P. They can even be used afterward when practicing different math skills! No matter what you do with them they will look totally adorable all lined up in their penguin family.

Egg Carton Penguin Craft

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You Will Need

• An empty egg carton
• Paint in black, white, and orange (mix yellow and red together if you don’t have orange
• Scissors
• A paintbrush
• Tiny googly eyes
• Clear drying craft glue
• Hot glue or other quick dry glue

Time To Create

When crafting with children it is always a good idea to prepare what you can before inviting kid over to join in. For this activity, I cut out the egg carton base as well as the beaks and feet ready for our girls, ages 5 and 8 to paint. Older children most likely would be fine doing this step. Even at 5 and 8, many kids can do this step depending on the day and everyone’s energy levels!

The part of the egg carton you need for this penguin craft is the center part that divides the individual eggs. Use the lid to cut out the feet and beaks. For the beaks fold a piece of egg carton in half and cut out little triangles so they open up to form a beak shape.

Start by painting the feet and beak orange or even black if you are trying to recreate a specific type of penguin. Carefully paint the white body and then go around this neatly with black paint and paint the rest of the egg carton. Leave to dry.

Using craft glue stick on the googly eyes. The feet and beak will be much easier to adhere to the body using a hot glue gun. Wait for the eyes to dry (you can see I couldn’t wait but the craft glue will dry clear) and your penguin is done!

We painted some egg carton off-cuts white to use as icebergs. Miss 5 absolutely adored this craft and has taken her waddle of penguins around with her setting them up in various ways so they can partake in different activities with her.

Some Penguin Facts

While creating your egg carton penguins is the perfect time to learn some interesting facts about them.

• Penguins are aquatic flightless birds.
• The Emperor Penguin is the tallest of all penguin species while the Little Blue Penguin is the smallest.
• Penguins are found almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere Only one species, the Galápagos penguin is found north of the equator.
• There are 18 species of penguins.
• Penguins can drink seawater.

To find out more about the penguin head over to Discover Wildlife. They have a great article about the species of penguins as well as many other interesting facts.

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