Marble-Painted Penguin Craft for Preschoolers

Last Updated on January 22, 2021 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: This toddler and preschool penguin craft involves a process art activity that uses marbles to paint the body. Once it’s dry, add the details and hang on the wall. Adorable!

I love process art.

For those of you who’ve been following me for awhile, this is no surprise.

However, I will toss a craft in there now and then, but I still want part of it to be process art.

I think it works nicely, the children have fun with it, and it does create something fun to hang in our classroom.

During our penguin theme I came up with an idea that involved a sealable plastic bag, marbles, and black paint.

Add the details and there is a cute penguin craft!

Marble-Painted Penguin Craft for Preschoolers

One the reasons I love marble painting is because it adds fun fine motor to an activity. We loved using it with our winter mitten art, our doily valentines activity, and our colorful butterflies. It’s also a fun sensory experience as the marbles are moved around the paper!

What we used:

White construction paper
Orange construction paper
Black construction paper
Big wiggly eyes (these are the best)
Marbles
Black washable tempera paint
White glue
Gallon size sealable plastic storage bag

Step One of the Penguin Craft

Cut white paper to make a penguin’s body. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, I just sort of made something up that was flat on the bottom and rounded on the top.

Place the white paper into the storage bag, squirt some black paint into it, add a few marbles, and seal it up.

If you are doing this with toddlers, you can eliminate the marbles so you don’t have to worry about a choking hazard. They will still enjoy pressing on top of the plastic to push the black paint around.

In fact, you can see in the photo below that some of the children didn’t even push the marbles around. They simply wanted to press on the paint and paper.