30 Perfect Penguin Videos for Kindergarten
What’s black and white and cute all over? 🐧 Penguins, of course! 🖤🤍 Penguins are such delightfully cute and interesting birds—they make a perfect winter theme in kindergarten! Here’s a collection of penguin videos for kids that will help as you teach about the habits and characteristics of these tuxedoed polar pals. Like my other video roundups, this one is divided into categories to help you choose penguin videos that make it easy to integrate your theme across the curriculum. You’ll find penguin videos for teaching science, math, literacy, and art concepts, as well as some that are just for fun!
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Let’s dive right into the penguin videos! Below are 30 videos to help you engage your students and integrate your penguin theme across your curriculum!
Penguin Videos for Teaching Science
This first section is full of informational penguin videos. You can use these clips as you would nonfiction books to develop anchor charts and help students build their background knowledge in preparation for informational writing.
In addition to the YouTube videos I’ll share below, if you have a subscription to Disney+, there is (as of January 2024) a kids’ nature documentary on that platform called Penguins. This hour-and-16-minute film tells the story of an Adélie penguin named Steve’s first year as an adult. You can read a review of this G-rated film on Common Sense Media to determine if it would be appropriate for your class!
With photos, footage, and narration, this short video from All Things Animal TV gives students a summary of several basic facts about penguins. This video is a great intro to your penguin unit because it can help students access their prior knowledge and spark curiosity, leading to a productive class discussion.
From Free School, this video goes further in depth about penguins, with information about species and habitats. This one also has plenty of appealing footage of real penguins in their natural environments.
Honestly, I find Blippi a little hard to watch, but some kids love his videos! This one includes a visit to a zoo and an aquarium, where Blippi gets to go into the exhibits and learn about (and feed) penguins. He learns and shares some fascinating facts about Humboldt and African penguins.
In this full Wild Kratts episode, the brothers learn about Emperor penguins at the South Pole and then work to rescue penguins that are mysteriously stranded on the other side of the planet, in the Arctic.
Presented in a question-and-answer format with engaging penguin video footage, this mini-documentary from Kids Academy is about four and a half minutes long. This is another video that is great for building anchor charts.
Here’s Harry Kindergarten Music with a content-rich song about penguins. Great for transitions, this short song packs in a lot of useful information and vocabulary!
This Homeschool Pop video includes some less common penguin facts along with graphics and photos. This is a nice video for further on in your penguin unit when your students crave some new information!
Like the previous video, this one from SciShow Kids also includes some fun facts that are a little different than those included in many of the other penguin videos.
From BBC Earth Kids, this video includes a lot of information! Some of the facts are well-known ones, and others are a little more obscure. Children will love the clear and fascinating penguin video footage in this one!
This video includes footage of 17 different species of penguin! This is a wonderful way for students to compare and contrast the appearances and habitats of the birds.
Planning a penguin theme? This informational unit includes an eye-catching PowerPoint and a bunch of printable material! Find it in the website shop below or here on TPT.
Penguin Unit with PowerPoint
This “All About Penguins” thematic unit includes materials to help you integrate learning about penguins into science, social studies, literacy, and math in your primary classroom. You will download a zipped folder containing a PowerPoint File and a PDF.
Penguin Videos that Support Math Instruction
Carry your polar theme into your math block with these penguin videos that touch on kindergarten counting, addition, and subtraction skills.
This upbeat song from Pinkfong counts penguins from 1-10 and back with cute animated visuals. Use this video as a transition song, a quick brain break, or a math warm-up!
Count 20 silly penguins going down a slide in this short video from Sesame Street.
This “Five Little Penguins” animated song by Patty Shukla counts back from five, a perfect intro to beginning subtraction. This song can also be sung as a fingerplay—encourage students to make up hand motions!
This peppy “Ten Little Penguins” song is set to video of various groups of penguins. After watching this one through, consider playing it again and pausing it throughout to have students count the visible penguins!
From Kids Academy, this penguin video offers a short addition lesson with sums within ten.
And from Online Learning School, here’s another penguin addition video. This one doesn’t have narration. You may want to pause it after each equation to give students a moment to come up with the sum before it’s revealed.
The next video is a read-aloud of the math book Penguin Place Value and a place value lesson. You can find the book Penguin Place Value here on Amazon if you’d prefer to do your own lesson along with it!
For more penguin math practice, here are some simple printable math puzzles! Find them at this link on TPT or below in the My Happy Place website shop!
Penguin Math Puzzles
Perfect for an independent practice center, these penguin math puzzles include four options: number matching, teen numbers, addition matching, and subtraction matching.
Penguin Videos for Your Literacy Lessons
Next up—a set of penguin videos you can use to support reading and writing in your classroom.
Presented in read-aloud format by Vooks, the picture book Hiku (which you can find here on Amazon), tells the relatable story of a young penguin who is overwhelmed by the thought of a visit from extended family. This is a great story for working on text-to-self connections!
Helen Lester’s Tacky the Penguin is a favorite fiction read-aloud for a penguin theme! Here’s a read-aloud of it by My Cozy Corner. You can purchase the book on Amazon to add it to your classroom library.
Another fun penguin book to read aloud is Penguin and Pinecone: A Friendship Story by Salina Yoon. You can find the book here on Amazon to add to your collection. While you wait, the video below by Kids Story House is very nicely done!
You can add some penguin nonfiction to your literacy block with Pierre the Penguin: A True Story by Jean Marzollo. This book (available here on Amazon) tells the story of a biologist working to help a sickly penguin at the California Academy of Sciences. The read-aloud below is animated by Vooks and is fun to watch!
For more penguin literacy practice, take a look at this Penguins CVC Words set on TPT (or below in the My Happy Place website shop).
Penguin CVC Words Activities
This set of penguin CVC words activities includes word searches, puzzles, a BINGO game, and practice pages to help students master CVC words.
Penguin Videos with Art Ideas
A thematic unit isn’t complete without some opportunities for creative expression! Find penguin videos with ideas for arts and crafts below.
Here’s a simple painting project from Art for Kids Hub using only three paint colors.
This video from School Art Projects shows students how to draw a penguin. This directed drawing video doesn’t include oral instructions, so you might want to pause it periodically and give explanations and help where needed.
A penguin paper plate craft like this could be fun to complete with caregivers at a family night! You could use Dollar Tree paper plates that are black on one side and white on the other to avoid having to wait for paint to dry.
Here’s another cute penguin craft that students could complete with a helper—maybe with their older grade reading buddies?
More Penguin Videos: Just for Fun!
This last set of penguin videos is perfect to pull from when you need a brain break, a cool-down time for recess, or a little reward at the end of the day!
This sweet video from Dodo Kids follows Natalia, a rescued penguin, as she overcomes her fear of water. This video is five minutes long—perfect for filling a little free time at the end of the day!
Next up, “The Penguin Dance,” performed by Jack Hartmann, is a perfect penguin brain break! This cute, easy-to-learn song and dance will get your students up and moving.
From The Kiboomers, “Did You Ever See a Penguin” follows a familiar tune, making it an easy penguin song for children to learn and sing along with. They can also choreograph motions to act the song out as they sing!
If your students like to learn new dances, this video by Sing Play Create will be perfect for them. This “Penguin Song and Dance” has catchy lyrics and fun dance moves that will help release some of that excess winter energy!
This high-energy, silly penguin song includes some penguin facts in its slightly nonsensical lyrics. It also features animated penguins with dance moves the kids will enjoy emulating!
I hope this collection of videos will help you add some pizazz to your penguin theme! Thanks for reading!
