Penguin Story Stones

By Adventures and Play TeamPublished: September 18, 2015Updated: May 12, 2026

I had been wanting to make more story stones since our earlier batch for Wheels on the Bus. When I came across a picture book called Hiku by Nicole Snitselaar and Coralie Saudo, the idea worked itself out. The book is illustrated with painted-pebble penguins. Each penguin in the story is a stone with a face, a heart-shaped tummy on Hiku, and a small orange beak. The natural thing was to make our own set.

Story stones are smooth pebbles painted to represent characters or scenes from a story. The kid uses them to retell the book, invent variations, or build new stories around the same characters. They sit between a themed play tray and a hands-on retelling tool. For book tie-ins, story stones let the child move the characters around in space, which is the part book-only readings cannot do.

We have been using these penguins off and on since 2015. They have outlived three sensory bins and several boxes of marshmallows.

Penguin Story Stones Pinterest pin. Around twenty hand-painted penguin stones in various sizes arranged in an arc around the Hiku picture book by Nicole Snitselaar and Coralie Saudo. Each stone is painted black with a white tummy, two white eyes with black pupils, a red heart-shaped beak, and small orange or red feet. The largest stones at the top are big enough to fit in a hand. The smallest at the bottom are smaller than a thumbnail.

Cover of the picture book Hiku by Nicole Snitselaar and Coralie Saudo. A single large penguin with a white heart-shaped tummy stands on an icy hill against a pale blue sky, surrounded by smaller painted-pebble penguins in the snow.

Painting the penguins, slowly

I used two types of stones. The large ones came from the garden and the small ones were white decorative garden pebbles from a craft store. The painting was a slow project. I only painted in the evenings after the kid was in bed and I waited a full twenty-four hours between coats, so the whole set took a week. Writing it out makes it sound harder than it was. I thoroughly enjoyed the process and the kid loved seeing the difference in the penguins each morning.

Around forty completed penguin story stones laid out on a pale wooden background. The stones range from large palm-sized rocks to small thumbnail-sized pebbles. All are painted matte black with white heart-shaped or oval tummies, two white eyes with black pupils, a small red beak, and orange or red feet at the base.

The steps:

  1. Paint one side of each stone in black acrylic paint. Place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper to dry.
  2. Wait 24 hours. Paint the other side black.
  3. Paint a circle for the tummy on each side using white acrylic paint. A heart shape works on the larger stones; a round oval works on the smaller ones.
  4. Dip a flat lollipop-stick end into white paint and stamp two eyes on each face.
  5. Dip the tip of a thin paintbrush in black paint and add a pupil to each eye.
  6. Paint a small triangular beak in orange or red.
  7. Use the lollipop-stick end again, this time dipped in orange, and stamp three small joined-up dots at the base for the feet.
  8. Wait another 24 hours. Cover one side in watered-down PVA glue and let dry.
  9. Repeat on the other side.

The PVA seal stops paint chips lifting when small fingers get involved. It also gives the stones a soft sheen that catches light without looking plasticky.

The full set of completed penguin story stones arranged in a large circle around the Hiku picture book. The stones at the top of the circle are the largest, with the smallest pebbles at the bottom. Each penguin has its own character. Some look slightly mischievous, some shy, a few are slightly lopsided. The book's cover is visible inside the circle.

An edible white sensory base

With the stones finished, I built a sensory bin to play out the story. The base was edible white, to match the icy world of the book. The bin was a shallow storage box lined with patterned paper (penguin-printed adhesive tape on the back wall, just because we had it). The materials:

  • Large marshmallows, stacked into rough igloos around the back edge
  • Mini marshmallows poured across the base, an inch or so deep
  • Small meringue shells scattered along one short side as decorative texture
  • The penguin stones placed on top in family groups

The base is technically edible but I treated this as a supervised activity, not a free-for-all. The marshmallows attract small hands and small mouths. The painted stones, even sealed with PVA, are not for eating and the smaller pebbles are a choking risk. Adult supervision goes without saying.

Top-down view of the penguin sensory bin. A shallow rectangular tray with a teal patterned border, filled with mini marshmallows like packed snow. Painted penguin stones cluster around the edges, with large marshmallows stacked as igloos. A small ring of meringue shells lines one end of the tray.

Hiku at the kitchen table

The kid sorted the stones by size first. The largest ones became the parent penguins, the medium ones the older siblings, and the tiny pebbles the babies. Each group got its own corner of the marshmallow bin. He recognized Hiku’s heart-shaped tummy on one of the larger stones and gave that one its own marshmallow igloo apart from the rest of the family, which fit the book’s story neatly.

Close-up of the sensory bin showing several penguin stones standing among mini marshmallows. A tower of three large marshmallows has been built next to the front penguins. Two larger penguins sit in the foreground and several smaller ones are tucked between the marshmallow piles.

The play that followed was mostly his. He moved the penguins between igloos, retold the part of the book where Hiku sneaks off, and built a mini marshmallow snowball fight between two groups. Each penguin had its own character because the painting itself made them slightly different. Some looked mischievous, others shy, a few turned out to be quite odd.

Three large penguin story stones in the foreground of the marshmallow sensory bin. The Hiku picture book stands open in the background, showing the same penguin design. Smaller stones are scattered among the mini marshmallows with larger marshmallow towers behind them.

After the marshmallows were eaten or thrown out, the stones went into a small drawstring bag and ended up at the bottom of the craft drawer. They have come out again for a Christmas penguin play scene, a winter writing-tray prompt, and once for a quick counting game where the kid sorted by size into groups of five. The painting effort pays itself back many times over.

Two-panel spread from inside the Hiku picture book. The top panel shows several painted-pebble penguins splashing in a teal pool of water. The bottom panel shows a long line of penguins gathered as if for a family photograph, with one slightly larger pebble penguin at the center wearing a heart-shaped tummy patch.

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