Two sheets. The first carries six numbered panels, each showing the penguin as it stands at the end of that step, with one short instruction underneath. The second repeats the finished drawing small at the top and then gives empty squares to copy it into.
The grey lines are the whole idea
In every panel, the strokes from the earlier steps are printed in grey and only the strokes you add at that step are black. That one decision is what separates a step sheet a child can follow from one they cannot.
Draw all six panels in the same black and you have not written a lesson, you have set a spot the difference puzzle. A child has to hold panel three in their head, compare it with panel four, work out what moved, and only then pick up a pencil. Six year olds cannot do that reliably, which is how you end up with a penguin that has two sets of feet. Here, step four is simply the two black shapes at the bottom of the panel.
What the six steps ask for
- Draw a big egg shape. That is the whole body.
- Draw a big oval inside it for the white tummy.
- Add a wing on each side, fat in the middle.
- Two wide feet at the bottom, turned out.
- Two small eyes, then a beak just under them.
- Finish with a woolly hat and a line of ice.
Why the wings are drawn fat
A penguin is not named by its body, which is just an egg. It is named by the three things hung on it: a large pale front, a beak sitting between the eyes, and two wide feet turned out at the bottom. Get those and almost any oval reads as a penguin.
The wings are the step that goes wrong most often. Drawn as thin slivers down the sides, the result looks like an egg with ears. Here each one is a fat teardrop that starts and finishes on the body outline, the way a real flipper joins a shoulder, and a child copying the black shape in panel three gets that for free.
The practice page
The second sheet puts the finished penguin small at the top, so there is something to look at that is not the step panels, and then gives you empty squares underneath. The Practice boxes control sets one, two, four or six of them.
Each box is square, because the drawing is, and each has a faint dotted cross marking its middle. That cross is there for a reason: without it a child starts the egg shape in a corner and runs out of paper before the feet. One box is almost a full page for a careful first go; six turns the sheet into quick repetitions.
Questions
- How many steps are in the penguin drawing lesson?
- Six, laid out two to a row across the first sheet, each with its own instruction printed underneath. A second sheet follows with the finished drawing and empty boxes to copy it into.
- What do the grey lines in each panel mean?
- Grey is everything already on the paper from the steps before. Black is what you add now. So a child never has to compare one panel with the last to work out which line is new, which is the thing that defeats most step by step sheets.
- What age can follow this?
- From about five with an adult reading the instructions aloud, and alone from seven or eight. The steps are deliberately one action each, so nothing on the sheet asks a child to do two things before the next picture.
- How many practice boxes do I get?
- One, two, four or six, set from the control above the paper. Four is the default and leaves each box big enough for a drawing with real detail in it. One box is close to a whole page.
- Will the lesson be the same if I print it again?
- Yes. Nothing in it is random, so a child who prints it twice gets the same six steps in the same order both times. Only the paper size and the number of practice boxes change what comes out.