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.
Get your Mr. Popper’s Penguins supplies
If you’re going to do this, you need the “supplies,” namely the book and movie. (Amazon links are affiliate links)
Mr. Popper’s Penguins plot
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.
The movie on the other hand has some of the same names, and he does get penguins, but that’s about the only similarity.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins activities
I’ve had about 5 different penguin activities I’ve wanted to do ever since we read the Mr. Popper’s Penguins, but I’ve either not had the supplies, or something has gone wrong to keep us from doing it. Especially this egg carton penguins.
And now that I’m finally sharing all about our plans, the post has disappeared from every place I swore I shared it. EVERY place! I blame it on lack of sleep.
But here’s a few Mr. Popper’s Penguins discussion questions:
- In the book Mr. Popper trained the penguins, what would you train the penguins to do?
- How is the book different than the movie?
- If you had penguins mailed to you, what would you name them?
- If you had to earn money to support your pet penguins, what would you do?
- How is the book the same as the movie?
- What is your favorite scene in the book or the movie?
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.
Mr. Popper’s Penguins snacks
Of course the key of our book and a movie night is the snacks. It’s the kids’ favorite thing. Recently I’ve been letting them help me plan it out. Which means a lot more focus on sugarry snacks…
We had marshmallows for ice cubes.
Nutter Butter penguins (can you see my lack of decorating capability?)
Shrimp because the penguins loved to eat shrimp in the book.
Melted ice (blue Powerade) for our drink.
And penguin nests with giant M&Ms for eggs (similar to our beaver dams from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe).
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.
Forgot to add about our week, like I try to do every Friday
This week we simulated public school at home, right down to walking to school and 20 minutes for lunch (I had some great suggestions on my facebook page for how to best do this). It was exhausting for everyone and today I decided not to do it because we were all very tired from waking up earlier.
But, good news of that week is I got lots of sewing done. I couldn’t do any of the other chores I usually do during our school day (grocery shopping, laundry, cleaning), but my sewing machine is in the school room/craft room. So, I finished up all details on my hoodie of awesomeness. I’m still debating about lining it, and if I will add the visors which look so cool on the inspiration piece. I also made 3 pouches for the kids while we’re at Disney World. They should hold a small water bottle, their wallet, and a few snacks per kid. It’s about the perfect size. And just this once I actually have steps of the whole planning process. Taken on my phone because I lost my camera somewhere. That generic somewhere in my house is my camera.
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 🙂
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.
I think your hoodie looks really good so far! Why were you guys simulating public school anyway? Did I miss something?
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?”
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!
I remember reading those books as a kid and loving them!
Your hoodie looks awesome!
Is the movie any good, if it doesn’t follow the book?
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.
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)
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…
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!
I know some of those snacks were just weird. Especially Princess’ current obsession with shrimp.
I am absolutely LOVING my hoodie.
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?
That would be an understatement. They were quite convinced it was horrible getting up that early.