Activity Ideas for
Pengwin ar ei Wyliau
Booktime is a universal programme providing a free book pack to all reception
aged children. Each child will receive their own book pack to take home and keep,
containing two books, a leaflet for parents/carers, and a library leaflet. In order to
make the most of the Booktime programme, activities and lessons relating to the
story books should also take place in school. The following suggestions are designed
to provide some ideas for classroom activities relating to the Welsh language story
book, Pengwin ar ei Wyliau.
An activity to talk about friendship and how to be a good friend
After reading the book talk about Penguin and Crab and how they became good
friends. What did Crab do that helped him to become friends with Penguin?
You could use hot-seating to explore Penguin and Crab’s friendship further. Ask for
volunteers who are happy to pretend to be Crab or Penguin. The rest of the children
in the class can ask them questions about how and why they became friends. Ask
the children if they would like to be friends with Crab or Penguin? Encourage them
to give reasons for their answers using ‘because’.
Once you have finished the hot-seating activity ask the children to think about their
own friendships. Discuss what makes a good friend. Remind the children that when
talking about other people that they know they need to think carefully before they
speak to ensure that they don’t upset another child (a rule that all comments must
be positive could work well during this discussion).
Ask the children to consider what qualities make a good friend. The children should
rehearse sentences describing their friends in a positive way. Eg, I am happy Amber
is my friend because she can make me laugh. Once the children have thought about
what they want to say about their friends these statements can be shared as a class
or a group. Use the children’s statements to collect a group of words that describe
a good friend. The words could be used to create a display or you might want to
revisit the story and encourage the children to look for examples of Crab or Penguin
showing how to be good friends.
An activity to help children think about contrasting
temperatures and how to describe them
Show the children two contrasting pages from Pengwin ar ei Wyliau, one depicting
Penguin’s cold home and the other showing Crab’s warm home. Talk about the
different temperatures in the two pictures and how the children know this. If they
don’t notice the difference in colour of the two locations then you could point this
out to them.
You might like to have some cold or warm water for them to feel. You could also
use a hot water bottle to give a feeling of warmth and ice cubes to emphasise
feelings of cold.
Once the children have felt the different temperatures ask them to think about
different words, colours or images which could represent hot and cold. If the
children are struggling to generate their own ideas you could suggest some and ask
them to sort them into the correct category.
Possible follow-on activities for the class:
• Children could mime hot and cold activities
• List words, and then group the words given to them
• Group colours, animals, or shapes which they associate with hot or cold
• Look at pictures representing hot and cold places in the world. Create a hot/cold collage where half the page is hot and half is cold (children could
choose to split the page left/right, top/bottom or diagonally).
Wales for a holiday?
In the book Pengwin ar ei Wyliau, Penguin goes on holiday because he wants to
go somewhere different where he can do different things. Ask the children about
holidays or days out they have been on. Encourage them to talk about what they
have done on their holidays.
Ensure the children are aware that lots of people come to Wales on holiday every
year. You could watch or look at some adverts relating to Welsh tourism. Talk
about all of the reasons that people might have for coming to Wales on holiday.
Explain to the children that Penguin and Crab want to go on holiday together and
that it’s their job to encourage them to come to Wales for their holiday. Give the
children the opportunity to think of reasons why Crab and Penguin would like to
visit Wales for their holiday.
Children can then create their own posters/pictures which would encourage Penguin
and Crab to take their next holiday in Wales. What do they need to show in the
picture to prove to Penguin and Crab that Wales is the perfect destination for their
next holiday?
Possible follow on activity for the class:
Discuss why we like to go on holiday? Penguin and Crab wanted to go on holiday
for a little while but they didn’t want to stay away from their homes for too long.
Discuss where the children would go on holiday if they could go anywhere
in the world. What would make them want to come back home?