Mr. Popper's Penguins book and a movie 3rd

Mr. Popper’s Penguins book and a movie night

Aug 16, 2024

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I remember reading Mr. Popper’s Penguins in elementary school and being charmed by the absurdity. When Jim Carrey made a movie of it a few years ago I was worried about how close it would stay to the source material. Turns out I was right on that. Either way though, I wanted to read the book with my kids and turn it into a book and a movie, and so I assigned it to them to read for 3rd grade.

(there are affiliate links in here)

Hi, Future Ticia 2024 here, I’m updating the post with my current logo and generally getting it better looking, and more useful for people to use.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins book

Mr. Popper loves all things Antarctic and follows Captain Cook’s expeditions with a single-minded passion. One day he is quite surprised to receive a penguin in the mail. Eventually, through various ways, he has 10 penguins. Then the true shenanigans take place and Mr. Popper and his family take the penguins on tour around the country.

It’s cute, it inspired my kids to want to learn more about penguins and Antarctica, and it made for lots of fun, and has lots of great things to discuss.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins book club

Hi, Future Ticia 2024 jumping in here with exciting news. I’m no longer going to leave you with a generic “You could do this theoretical cool stuff, I thought I had,” oh no! Now I have an actual very cool Mr. Popper’s Penguins book club you can buy! Complete with over 100 pages of materials with questions and vocabulary pages for each chapter. Projects to do and step-by-step assembly directions with pictures for the snacks.

I now return you to the humor of past Ticia 2015.

I’ve had about 5 different penguin activities I’ve wanted to do ever since we read Mr. Popper’s Penguisn, but I’ve either not had the supplies, or something has gone wrong to keep us from doing it. And now that I’m finally sharing all about our plans, the posts have disappeared from every place I swore I shared them (Future Ticia 2024 comments, this must have been before I really had Pinterest to use). I blame it on my lack of sleep.

I did find this fun post with another unit for Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and Angellic Scalliwags has a fun post on Antarctica that would be fun to follow up with, and here’s one more post on penguin books.

Future Ticia 2024 says I’m working on creating a more formal book club, but that gives you a start until it is all the way done. Ha ha ha ha, Even more Future Ticia of 2024, like August, not January, says IT’S DONE! IT’S FINALLY DONE!!!!

Mr. Popper’s Penguins Book Club Snacks

Future Ticia 2024 says, this was early in our book and a movie plan, so I did not do as many snacks as I did then, nor were they as fancy as they became.

Also, I just want to add my decorating skills are still terrible.

fish- goldfish (Future Ticia 2024 would totally also cook some fish to get a meal now)
ice- marshmallows
melted ice- blue Powerade
shrimp- I literally picked up some shrimp and cooked it
nests- melted chocolate chips and a bit of peanut butter mixed with chow mein noodles then M&Ms put on top (as eggs, I’d recommend peanut as it is more egg shaped)
penguins- nutter butters dipped in chocolate and decorated to look like penguins (I cannot find a good link to nutter butters, much sadness)

This particular night was rather heavy on sugary snacks, but since I’m not trying too hard for these to be healthy I’m okay with that. It’s also not quite as “pinterest worthy” because the kids write the labels now, but I’m okay with that too. My end goal for the kids’ education is for them to completely own it. This is a small step towards that.

This text has been approved by Princess who looked over my shoulder and read it.

I’m currently brainstorming more snacks to add in, so expect some updates.

Originally published January 30, 2015

3rd grade book and a movie

Comments

14 responses to “Mr. Popper’s Penguins book and a movie night”

Almost Unschoolers

January 30, 2015

Marshmallows and shrimp? I’m not sure about that one – but I love the concept, and I think your Nutter-butter penguins are adorable. The book and movie are completely different. We saw the movie first – so the book was a pleasant surprise. I like all the alliteration in the movie, though – and the movie has more of a pro-marriage ending…though I really liked Mrs. Popper from the book, and her creative way for keeping her house neat and tidy 🙂

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  January 30, 2015
  
  I know, it was a very odd food combination, but the kids insisted on it (I think the shrimp is more because Princess loves shrimp and was looking for an excuse to eat it).
  
  They both had very different stories to tell. They’re both good, but for different reasons. I agree the alliteration and the pro-marriage ending was a lot of fun.
  But, I loved the story of how they kept their family together as they toured the country and all the odd quirks of their penguins in the book.
Hwee

January 30, 2015

I think your hoodie looks really good so far! Why were you guys simulating public school anyway? Did I miss something?

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  January 30, 2015
  
  I was tired of the complaints, “We’re starting school already, we barely got to play” (we were starting at 9 something), “More school?” (after only an hour or two of school), “Only one TV show for lunch?”
Lindsay @ BytesofMemory

January 30, 2015

So much fun!! I need to do some more of these book/ movie combos with fun snacks! We are reading Pippi Longstockings right now so we will have to watch the movie when we are done!

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  January 31, 2015
  
  I remember reading those books as a kid and loving them!
maryanne @ mama smiles

January 30, 2015

Your hoodie looks awesome!

Is the movie any good, if it doesn’t follow the book?

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  January 31, 2015
  
  As a completely separate if you haven’t read the book it’s good. But, if you’re viewing it as an adaptation of the book, it’s not.
  
  Since this isn’t a book I have super strong theories of, it didn’t bother me as much for it to play fast and loose with the book. I think also it didn’t bother me because they weren’t trying to follow the book. It felt like they took inspiration from the situation started in it.
Marie-Claude

January 31, 2015

Fun snacks! I’ve never read the book – but it does seem fun. I can get rather worked up when a movie is such “adaptation” especially when I loved the book (I still grumble about Ella Enchanted)

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  January 31, 2015
  
  They RUINED Ella Enchanted. I don’t know why it didn’t bother me as much in this one, maybe because it felt true to the heart of the book, I don’t know. Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland also doesn’t follow the book much, but it doesn’t bother me in those movies either. I wonder why that is…
Claire

January 31, 2015

Oh, to have your skill with a sewing machine! Your hoodie is just lovely! I’ve heard a lot about this book recently – I might have to check it out and copy all your lovely (and occasionally weird) snacks!

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  January 31, 2015
  
  I know some of those snacks were just weird. Especially Princess’ current obsession with shrimp.
  
  I am absolutely LOVING my hoodie.
Natalie PlanetSmartyPants

February 2, 2015

I hate it when the movies depart too far from the book – I always get that “wha-a-a-t?” moment. Even Lord of the Rings was not true enough to the book for me. So I guess the kids were not enamored with the school life, eh?

Reply
1. Ticia
  
  February 2, 2015
  
  That would be an understatement. They were quite convinced it was horrible getting up that early.