Penguin Footprints

We made the cutest Footprint Penguins this week, and I had to share :)
I've seen them all over the place, but it took me a bit to figure out how to do them - I saw tons of pictures of finished products, but none of the actual process! I'm not sure if this is the way you're supposed to do it, but I found that if I actually painted the white on my students' feet, it wouldn't transfer to the paper unless they were exceptionally flat-footed.

We ended up painting the outside edges and toes of each child's foot and adding the white middle by hand.

The "flippers" are fingerprints!

We added "snow" by mixing shaving cream and glue. I either got the proportions wrong or using $1 Store shaving cream was a no-no because it didn't puff up as much as I remember it doing last year. (Yes, I've done shaving cream snow before and yes, I have no clue how I did it...my brain willfully withholds these kind of fun facts from me, just to watch me fumble I think.)

I allowed each kiddo to choose their own "beak" and googly eyes from a variety of shapes and sizes. I try to give them as much ownership as possible in these kind of projects so that we don't end up with 20 carbon copies.

They also got to paint as much "snow" as they wanted...some chose the straight line effect.....

Other penguins were experiencing blizzard-like conditions...

This sweet girl went for symmetry...exactly 5 snowflakes on either side of the penguin...

And this penguin is experiencing very localized weather...

And, as a warning, not all children are going to be thrilled about having their foot painted. Be prepared with an alternate version for those sweeties. This little guy thought I was completely nuts to want to put paint on his foot, but he was tickled to get his hand painted instead!

These sweet penguins are cheering up our hallway now, and everyone loves them. I can't wait to add our snowmen to them next week!