Five Little Penguins, a counting story

Do you love penguins?  These clip art penguins from Sonya Dehart Design were so darned cute, I had to make something fun with them!

Here's what I put together:

Five little penguins went out to play
On a snowy winter day.
The ice was cold and the clouds were gray,
So one little penguin waddled away.

Four little penguins...
Three little penguins...
Two little penguins...
One little penguin...

No little penguins went out to play
On a snowy winter day.
The sun came out and the clouds blew away,
So five little penguins came back to play!

I made a read aloud book of the poem, with numerals and number words on each page, so young kiddos learning their numbers will really benefit from the book.  The count down poem format really lends itself to flannel board or chalk board display, so there are five little penguin manipulatives to act it out.  Way back when I taught first grade, I used a count down poem and manipulatives like these to introduce subtraction: I displayed the pictures, and wrote the subtraction sentences next to them as we reread the rhyme.  This method really helped children see that counting down is the same thing as subtracting 1.

My favorite part of this set though is the finger puppets I made to act it out as a finger play!

I can't wait to use these with the kiddos!