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explored at our conference on 1 March 2017, Reflecting Realities: British Values in Children’s Literature. Places can be
booked here or at www.clpe.org.uk/britishvalues
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Blue Penguin, by Petr Horáček (Walker)
Petr Horáček’s most philosophical picture book yet, focusing on themes around identity and belonging. Blue Penguin is
not accepted by his community because he looks different from them. In his lonely dreams he envisions a white whale
which moves him to make up a song. Its spiritual quality leads Blue Penguin to friendship and the inspiration to create a
new song that everyone can share. The textured illustrations with a colour palette focused on blue and white perfectly
evoke the mysticism of the snowy landscape.
Overall learning aims of this teaching sequence:
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To listen with enjoyment and respond to the book, through retelling and re-enacting the story
To think and talk confidently about their response to the book, the story and illustrations, and their meanings
To explore and interpret stories through creative activity including play, art, drama and drawing
To engage children with a story with which they will empathise
To develop empathy and understanding of character viewpoint through drama
To get to know the story really well and be able to revisit it in a variety of ways
To sequence and explore story structure through storytelling and storymapping
To share songs and rhymes from home
This teaching sequence is designed for a Nursery or Reception class.
Overview of this teaching sequence.
This teaching sequence is approximately 3-4 weeks long if spread out over a series of sessions.
The book supports teachers to teach about identity and difference providing a character they can empathise with. The
book invites children to consider what makes a friendship.
Early Years Foundation Stage Statutory Framework 2012:
Prime Area: Communication and Language
Listening and attention:
Listen attentively in a range of situations.
Listen to stories, accurately anticipating key events and
respond to what they hear with relevant comments,
questions or actions.
Give their attention to what others say and respond
appropriately, while engaged in another activity.
Understanding:
Follow instructions involving several ideas or actions.
Answer ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions about their experiences
and in response to stories or events.
Speaking:
Express themselves effectively, showing awareness of
listeners’ needs.
Develop their own narratives and explanations by
Specific Area: Literacy
Reading:
Read and understand simple sentences.
Use phonic knowledge to decode regular words and read
them aloud accurately.
Read some common irregular words.
Demonstrate understanding when talking with others
about what they have read.
Uses vocabulary and forms of speech that are increasingly
influenced by their experiences of books.
Knows that information can be retrieved from books and
computers.
Provide an opportunity during the sharing of songs and
rhymes for the children to talk about how the songs and
rhymes they have chosen are shared at home. Encourage
children and their parents to share songs and rhymes in
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
connecting ideas or events.
Uses talk to connect ideas, explain what is happening and
anticipate what might happen next, recall and relive past
experiences.
Questions why things happen and gives explanations. Asks
e.g. who, what, when, how.
their home languages and teach these to the other
children.
Writing:
Use phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match
their spoken sounds.
Write some irregular common words.
Write simple sentences which can be read by themselves
and others.
Spell some words correctly and make phonetically plausible
attempts at others.
Cross Curricular Links:
PSED
 Explore the theme of making friends with the children. You could read other stories, such as On Sudden Hill by Linda
Sarah and Benji Davies (Simon and Schuster) or Iris and Isaac by Catherine Rayner (Little Tiger Press), Blue Chameleon
by Emily Gravett (Macmillan) or A Splendid Friend Indeed by Suzanne Bloom (Alanna Books) or Croc and Bird by Alexis
Deacon (Red Fox) to give the children opportunities to discuss issues within friendship without talking about
themselves.
 Invite the children to collect photographs of friendly behaviour in the classroom to make a display and discuss what to
do if they think someone in the classroom is feeling lonely. You might also want to explore Allan Ahlberg’s poem A
Small Quarrel https://www.clpe.org.uk/poetryline/poems/small-quarrel to investigate difficulties in friendships and
making up after a falling out.
 Explore the theme of difference with the children. Invite the children to draw pictures of themselves, ensuring that
the materials you provide allow each child to represent themselves. Around the portraits, invite the children to stick
photographs of their favourite things, you might choose some categories for this: favourite food, favourite place,
favourite book etc. Once the pictures are finished, display them and discuss what the children notice, encourage the
children to notice shared interests and make discoveries about their classmates.
 Talk about the advantages of not all being good at or liking the same things and invite the children to consider Can we
do everything our friends can do? Can we teach a friend how to do something we are good at? You could use Abigail
by Catherine Rayner (Little Tiger Press) as a starting point for this.
 Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins) and Penguin by Polly Dunbar (Walker) also explore the themes of
being lonely using penguins. Explore with the children how the penguins could help themselves feel better. You might
also invite the children to take turns at caring for a lonely penguin, enabling them to share and develop strategies for
when they feel sad or lonely. These strategies could be collected into a book to help children choose ways to support
themselves when they are feeling sad or lonely themselves.
 Support the children to share and name more challenging emotions such as loneliness and difference and how they
can recognise these feelings in themselves and others. You could work with the children to create emotion cards
using pictures from favourite books alongside photographs of the children in drama activities to illustrate them. Series
of books work well for this such as the Anna Hibiscus stories by Atinuke (Walker) or the Alfie stories by Shirley Hughes
(Red Fox). Children could be invited to share how they feel each day with their key person and or a small group of
friends.
Understanding the World:
 Support the children to share significant events in their own experience by creating shrine boxes.
 Use the narrative in the text to explore what makes the children unique and talk about similarities and differences in
relation to their friends.
 Support the children to identify where Antarctica is on the globe and in relation to where they live and where their
families are from.
 Using the pictures and videos suggested in the sequence invite the children to discuss the similarities and differences
between where penguins live and their own habitat. You might want to create a book comparing the different
features that the children notice.
 Carry out investigations using snow and ice. Encourage the children to formulate questions. What makes ice? What
makes it melt? You could used crushed ice to represent snow and explore its properties and you might choose to
consider the differences between rain and snow.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Expressive Arts and Design:
 Explore Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ or the illustrations of Eric Carle alongside other works by Petr Horáček.
Provide paint and collage materials for the children to explore creating images in the same style.
 Provide opportunities for the children to explore tonal range to create their own icy pictures. Invite them to look
closely at the illustrations and mix colours to create the sea, ice and sky.
 Make penguins using modelling materials and paint or embellish with fabric.
 Create dream jars. Allow children to pick the materials they think are most suited to the quality of their dreams, invite
them to consider what texture a nightmare might be and how that might compare to a daydream. These could be
jars decorated with tissue paper stuck to the sides and lit with battery powered tea lights or glow sticks
http://theimaginationtree.com/2012/10/jam-jar-and-tissue-paper-luminaries.html or the jars can be stuffed with
appropriate materials and light added as in this example http://family.disney.com/craft/bfg-dream-jars#. Once the
jars are made the children can label them with the type of dream or a picture or description of the dream can be put
inside the jar.
 Experiment with creating jam jar snow globes using glitter for snow showing a scene from the story or the children
playing in the snow. http://www.pbs.org/parents/crafts-for-kids/homemade-snow-globes/
 Children could make tokens of friendship to share with each other, these could take the form of bracelets or badges.
Physical Development:
 Explore different ways of moving like a penguin to dance to the songs of friendship, explore sliding, waddling, and
using flippers instead of hands.
 Provide opportunities for children to mark make in ‘snow’ using either snow dough
http://theimaginationtree.com/2012/11/snow-dough-recipe-for-winter-sensory.html or soap flakes.
 Explore creating the night sky using by creating patterns using food colouring and water and then printing them onto
paper http://jugglingwithkids.com/2012/02/marbelized-paper.html
 Provide opportunities for the children to create snowflakes using paper and scissors.
Mathematics:
 The illustrations in the text offer plenty of opportunities for estimation.
 The sequence of images with Little Penguin moving closer to the Blue Penguin provide an opportunity to count in
multiples moving a penguin across a number of icebergs. This could be explored in a tuff tray with ice cubes
representing icebergs.
 After singing the song ‘Six Little Penguins’ create a new sequence for penguins disappearing using ordering language
first, second, third etc.
 Consider the size and scale of the animals in the book. Get the children to help make life-sized pictures of a baby
penguin, an adult penguin and a Beluga whale. The children could then compare themselves in height to the pictures.
You might want to use a book such as Is a Blue Whale the Biggest there is? by Robert Wells (Watts) to encourage
children to further question size and scale.
 Investigate making snowflakes using craft sticks to make star shapes
http://www.firstpalette.com/Craft_themes/Nature/craftsticksnowflake/craftsticksnowflake.html
Ideas for Continuous Provision:
Reading Area:
 Work with the children to create an icy environment – you might use floor cushions in shades of white and blue to
curl up on and have some penguin friends for the children to read with. There might be a Blue Penguin who suggests
a different penguin themed book for the children to read each week including non-fiction texts.
 You could create a moon and provide whale templates which the children could use to recommend books to each
other because they made them feel better.
 Create a songs of friendship area which houses books of nursery rhymes but also the rhymes and songs the children
bring in from home. You might record some or all of these and make the text available alongside the audio recording
to support children to tune into print. You might also include photographs of parents coming in to share their
favourites or pictures of the children singing with their families or friends.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
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As the sequence progresses create a display of books with familiar settings and focussed around families that reflect
the backgrounds of children in the setting, such as So Much (Walker) or by Trish Cooke and Helen Oxenbury, Titch by
Pat Hutchins (Red Fox), Avocado Baby by John Burningham (Red Fox), Eat Up, Gemma by Sarah Hayes and Jan
Ormerod (Walker), This is Lulu by Camilla Reid and Ailie Busby (Bloomsbury) etc. Collect dual language picture books
that reflect the languages spoken by families in the setting.
Mark making/ writing:
 Create a penguin messaging centre. Invite the children to consider how they would get a message to a lonely penguin
and provide the resources to support this.
 Show the children how to make or provide zig-zag and origami books for the children to record information about
penguins or stories of friendship.
 Create signs and labels for the icy world.
Small world play:
 The children can help create the world of the story in a tuff tray choosing appropriate materials to represent the sea
and ice. Explore with them ways to create the sky and moon and provide small figures to play out the story.
Role-play:
 Work with the children to create Blue Penguin’s world, include opportunities to explore the cold (using ice packs, ice
cubes or frozen water beads), snow, a place to record and store dreams or wishes, and a song writing workshop
including a book of friendship songs which can be added to and other ways to notate music simply. Provide simple
costumes such as hats and capes for the children to take on the role of Blue Penguin, the whale or the other
penguins.
Teaching Approaches:
Writing Outcomes:
Respond to illustration
Shared Journal
Role on the Wall
Caption Writing
Reading aloud and rereading
Information writing
Role-play and Drama - Freeze-Frame, Role-play and
Letters of advice
Hotseating
Songs
Tell Me: Book Talk
Speech and thought bubbles
Shared writing
Retelling
Visualisation
Gallery Walk
Conscience alley
Small world and re-enactment
Storytelling and storymapping
Story boxes
Weblinks:
BBC Penguin Fact Card http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Emperor_Penguin
Edinburgh Zoo Penguin Cam http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/penguin-cam/
Penguin sounds
https://www.freesound.org/people/al.barbosa/sounds/150861/
https://www.freesound.org/people/stormpetrel/sounds/179589/
Whale sounds
https://www.freesound.org/people/listeningtowhales/sounds/333105/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rC-DfuwN8c
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Links to other texts and resources.
Other Books by Petr Horáček
A New House for Mouse
Elephant
Puffin Peter
See CLPE Author of the Month feature on Petr Horáček:
www.clpe.org.uk/library-and-resources/booklists/author-month-petr-horacek
Other texts with Penguins as the main character
Penguin by Polly Dunbar (Walker)
Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers (HarperCollins)
The Emperor’s Egg by Martin Jenkins and Jane Chapman(Walker)
One Day on our Blue Planet…In the Antarctic by Ella Bailey (Flying Eye)
You might also want to the share the film Happy Feet which explores similar themes.
Texts with the theme of loneliness, friendship and misunderstanding
A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton (Walker)
Blue Chameleon by Emily Gravett (Macmillan)
A Splendid Friend Indeed by Suzanne Bloom (Alanna Books)
Aaaarrgghh Spider! by Lydia Monks (Egmont)
Bedtime for Monsters by Ed Vere (Puffin)
Croc and Bird by Alexis Deacon (Red Fox)
Elmer by David McKee (Andersen Press)
Texts with similar illustration techniques
Papa, please get the moon for me by Eric Carle (Puffin)
Polar Bear, Polar Bear, what do you hear? by Eric Carle (Puffin)
Song of Friendship
All Join In! by Quentin Blake (Red Fox)
Here we go round the Mulberry Bush by Fred Penner and Sophie Fatas (Barefoot Books)
The Oxford Treasury of Nursery Rhymes by Karen King, Sarah Williams and Ian Beck (Oxford University Press)
Over the Hills and Far Away edited by Elizabeth Hammill (Frances Lincoln)
Penguin Rhymes and Songs
Six Little Penguins
Have you ever seen a penguin come to tea?
Resources:
Power of Reading website for ‘Tell me’ grid of basic questions for booktalk
Teaching Sessions
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Before beginning this book:
 Collect together the resources to make cold and icy environments including fabrics, ways to represent snow and
ice and penguins.
 Ensure you have a globe or world map that shows Antarctica.
 Gather books which include penguins and icy environments. Provide opportunities for the children to browse and
share these books with each other.
 Prepare an area in the classroom which will be used as the role-play area, perhaps put up a base layer of blue or
white to demarcate it. In addition prepare a class reading journal by sewing or stapling together sugar paper to
collect together pieces of work or children’s responses as you move through the sequence.
Exploring environment - Respond to illustration and Visualisation:
 Show the children the endpapers. You might choose to display this using a visualiser or by creating copies for
the children to look at more closely. Don’t reveal anything else about the book.
 Ask the children to talk about the place they can see. Scribe ideas in the class journal around or on a copy of the
endpapers. Invite the children to predict what the environment might be like using all their senses: What can
you see? What can you hear? Does this place have a particular taste or smell? What would you feel if you held
your hands out or touched the floor?
 Invite the children to consider what they would want to wear if they visited such a place.
 Share images of different environments, the desert, a forest, the sea and Antarctica and invite the children to
choose which place they think it is offering explanations and drawing on their previous predictions and
thoughts.
 Explain that it is Antarctica. Invite the children to share what they know already about this environment and
who or what lives there, you might want to show the children where it is on a globe or map of the world and
discuss which countries are nearby and how it looks the same as or different from other countries on the map.
Visualisation
 Invite the children to share their experiences of snow and ice. Encourage them to bring in pictures and objects
from home to create a display. From your discussions, collect vocabulary that describes what snow is like and
record it in the class journal or on word cards for the wall.
 Give the children opportunities to explore cold, ice and snow using sensory experiences and symbolic fabric and
props. You could work with groups of children to explore ice and snow making. Whilst the children are exploring
talk to them about what they can see and feel. As you are talking with them note useful vocabulary on word
cards and invite the children to do the same.
 Once the children have explored the idea of cold and snow in their play give them an opportunity to create an
icy picture inspired by what they have been doing and the endpapers.
 Look again at the endpapers and talk about the textures and colours that the children can see; Does it look
rough or smooth? Is it shiny? What colours can they see? Which parts of the picture are most like the snow and
ice that they have seen?
 Provide different textures of paper; cartridge, foil, greaseproof, sandpaper, tissue paper, film and paint with a
variety of objects to use with it; sponges, bubble wrap, twigs and brushes. Give the children the opportunity to
explore using these materials to create their pictures. Discuss with them the effects they are trying to create
from their play experiences.
 Work with the children to display the pictures with the words they have used as the backdrop to your role-play
area creating a collage like the endpapers.
Role on the Wall:
 Discuss with the children who they think might live in this snowy environment. Invite them to consider what a
creature that lives in the snow might need? What would they find hard? What would they eat? How do they
know? Encourage the children to make links with other stories they know from books or films about cold places.
 Following the discussion invite the children draw or make who they think might live in the ice and place it in the
environment.
 Introduce a Blue Penguin puppet made from the illustration on the title page.
 Ask the children what kind of animal this is. Invite the children to share what they know about penguins and
also note anything they would like to find out about penguins in general or this penguin in particular. Record
the children’s thoughts in the first two columns of a large chart, like this:
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
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What do we know about penguins
Our questions about penguins
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What we have found out about
penguins
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Use the puppet to draw the children’s attention to this penguin in particular. Ask the children to say what they
notice about Blue Penguin. Elicit ideas with questions like:
- What do you notice about this penguin?
- How are they feeling? How do you know?
- How would you describe him?
- Is he like other penguins? How?
- Who do you think his friends might be?
Explore the font cover with the children and read aloud the title. Invite the children to predict what the story
could be about. You might want to provide further laminated blue penguin puppets in the role-play or tuff tray
snowy environments to encourage the children to play through their predictions.
Responding to Illustration and Freeze-Framing
 Revisit the front cover. Invite the children to look closely at the other penguins on the front cover asking; What
are they doing? How are they feeling? How do you know? Are they friends with Blue Penguin?
 Share the picture on the double page spread Far away in the south a blue penguin was born and share the text.
 Invite the children to look closely at the picture, you might want to give them copies of the image in groups so
they can pore over it. Invite the children to reflect on:
o How is this picture different from the front cover? What else can you see?
o What’s Blue Penguin doing? How does he feel? How do you know?
o Look at the penguins who are nearer Blue Penguin and those that are further away, what’s are they
doing? Who are they looking at? Why? How do you know?
o What do you notice about the weather? How would it feel to be in weather like that?
 Invite the children to pick a penguin from the scene and to stand in position as them. Once the children are in
position ask them to think about what and who they are looking at, how they are standing and how they think
they’re feeling.
 Photograph the freeze-frame to enable the children to further discuss the scene and create their own captions
explaining what’s going on in this picture.
 You might want to leave this picture out with some viewfinders to allow the children to revisit and continue to
look in detail at different aspects of it. Ensure that there are several penguins the children can group in the tuff
tray or roleplay environment to replicate this and other scenes in the book.
 Display the photograph and captions either on the wall or in the reading journal.
Tell me: Booktalk:
 Share the story from the beginning to I told you I was a real penguin several times with the children giving them
time to respond and consider how they feel about it.
 On a final reading pause after ‘A Blue Penguin is not something you see every day’, ‘“I feel like a penguin” said
Blue Penguin.’ And ‘I told you I was a penguin’ and invite the children to show you how Blue Penguin is feeling
using their faces and their bodies to demonstrate the emotion and collect some words to describe his feelings
to add to the Role on the Wall. Support the children in naming some of these difficult feelings. You might want
to discuss where they feel those feelings and how they feel in their heads and in the rest of their body. What do
they want to do when they feel like that?
 Refer back to the chart you made earlier about penguins. Do the children want to add anything further to this –
have they found out something new or have they got a new question?
 You could display the pictures of Blue Penguin diving and fishing by the tuff tray environment or in the role play
area to encourage the children to play out these scenes and further explore the interactions between Blue
Penguin and the others or explore as adult supported mini role-play or small world play activities with small
groups.
 Some children will be more tuned into the idea that Blue Penguin is different because of his colour. These
children will rely on you to enable them to share their feelings about this text and to support the other children
in talking through this and understanding how the characters are feeling and responding.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
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Invite the children to respond further to the story so far and record their responses in a large version of the ‘Tell
Me Grid’ in the class journal:
- What do you like about the story so far?
- What don’t you like?
- Do you have any questions you’d like to ask any of the characters?
- Is there anything you would like to know more about?
Finally invite the children to respond to the question: Does this story remind you of anything either in other
stories or in real life?
You may need to be sensitive to the children in your class, depending on their experiences of friendship and
the class dynamics. It may well be upsetting for some children if they are struggling with their own friendship
groups or if they are yet to settle socially in the setting. Children may rely on you for support in responding to
the themes in the book and in enabling them to explore difficult feelings of their own through the characters’
feelings and experiences.
Research and investigation – Penguins
 When the children arrive have a letter from Blue Penguin waiting for them:
Dear Children,
I’m feeling very confused and upset (N.B. Use words here from the previous session when the children identified
how Blue Penguin was feeling). I hope you can help me. The other penguins are saying that I’m not a real
penguin.
I feel like a penguin because I can dive (although I’m not the best at it) and I can catch fish. I sometimes catch
even bigger fish than the other penguins.
Can you find out a bit more about penguins for me to see if I am one?
I look forward to hearing what you find out.
Love,
Blue Penguin
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Read the letter to the children. What are penguins like? How do we know? Discuss the children’s experiences
seeing penguins in the zoo or on television. Elicit how the children feel about them and why.
Revisit the chart you have been creating about penguins.
Ask the children to talk about what they would like to find out about penguins and help them form questions
that can be investigated. Record these in the Questions column to be discussed, investigated and researched.
Put together a collection of information and storybooks about penguins for children to look at, read and talk
about. This will be a useful collection to draw on both in reading aloud sessions and for children to choose from
when taking books home.
You might also want to share some action rhymes about penguins and encourage the children to think about
the words that describe how penguins move. These words could be recorded in the class journal and the
movements explored further by having the same words outside near appropriate play equipment and
encouraging the children to explore moving like penguins.
Provide a variety of resources nearby that children can use to draw or write about anything of interest they find
out. Make a regular time for children to talk to the class about anything that they have discovered for
themselves or would like to draw other children’s attention to. This can be recorded on the class chart on the
final column. Encourage the children to consider any questions that their investigations throw up and can be
found out about.
Share Edinburgh Zoo’s Penguin Cam http://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/webcams/penguin-cam/ If possible have
this playing with observation charts on clipboards near it so the children can record what the penguins are
doing. Record these findings.
When the children have a collection of facts about penguins collate them as a class song to affirm that Blue
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Penguin is a real penguin. The song could be to the tune of If you’re happy and you know it and might start with
the examples from the book:
You’re a penguin and you know it dive and jump
You’re a penguin and you know it dive and jump
You’re a penguin and you know it and you really want to show it
You’re a penguin and you know it dive and jump
You’re a penguin and you know it catch some fish
You’re a penguin and you know it catch some fish
You’re a penguin and you know it and you really want to show it
You’re a penguin and you know it catch some fish
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Add appropriate actions to the song to support the children’s understanding. Once the children are happy with
the song and actions they could be recorded and this recording could be sent to Blue Penguin with a letter you
write back to him all together.
The song could also be produced in an illustrated book with the children each creating a page and illustrating it
to make a penguin song book.
Drama and Role-Play – Freeze-Frame
 Read aloud from beginning until the double-page spread illustration “But you’re not like us” said the other
penguins and they wandered away.
 Scribe the children’s ideas about what is happening in the class journal.
 Small groups of four or five children could be supported in re-enacting then freeze-framing the scene including
Blue Penguin catching the fish, in role as Blue penguin, and the other penguins. When you tap them on the
shoulder each child could voice their character’s thoughts or speech in role. These could be scribed on thought
or speech bubbles and displayed around the image.
 Take photographs of the children in Freeze-Frame so that they can talk about them afterwards and for which
they can write captions.
 Discuss with the children the sentence “But you’re not like us.” What do they mean? Are they right? How do
they think those penguins are feeling? How do they want Blue Penguin to feel? Why did they walk away once
they had said it?
 You could annotate a drawing of one of the other penguins and a drawing of Blue Penguin with the similarities
and differences. As before you will need to be sensitive to the children in the class who might be personally
affected by the themes in this story.
 To extend this thinking you might want to share other stories with the children about fear or preconceptions
leading to other characters or the reader getting the wrong impression such as Aaaarrgghh, Spider! by Lydia
Monks (Egmont) or Bedtime for Monsters by Ed Vere (Puffin).
Making Shrine Boxes
 Discuss the social setting of the classroom with the children and compare this to the penguin colony. What is
the same, what’s different? Are all the children in the class the same?
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Encourage the children to think about what they like, what and who is special to
them and to record these using photographs, pictures, objects and models.
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Invite the children to speak to their parents about their boxes and encourage
parents to engage with the activity.
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Some children might want to include maps of places their family have lived or
where they have visited, some children might want to recall and capture journeys that
they’ve been on.
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Invite the children to talk about their boxes with the class and receive feedback
about new pieces of information they have discovered about each other and new shared
interests/hobbies or family stories.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
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Reflect on how the shrine boxes show each child as being special, talk about the things you have learnt about
the children and reflect on special things you notice about each child. Note that the children are good at
different things and enjoy doing different things just as Blue Penguin was special in his colony.
Display the shrine boxes and encourage the children to use them to find out more about their classmates.
Responding to Illustration and Collaborative Poetry
 Re-read and read on to Blue Penguin was left all alone. His days were filled with emptiness.
 Play the children this short clip of a penguin alone in the storm
http://ak8.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/11760998/preview/stock-footage-penguin-in-the-storm-gentoopenguin-in-bad-weather-of-antarctica.mp4
 Share the illustration of Blue Penguin left alone. Play the sounds of the storm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yzwpn0VfQg as the children look at and respond to the image. You
might also give the children an ice cube to hold as they watch to connect them with the coldness of the
environment. Ask the children to reflect again on Blue Penguin’s experience using their 5 senses.
 Discuss with the children times when they like being alone and times when they don’t. Record these in the
class journal. Do they think Blue Penguin is enjoying being alone? How do they know? Invite the children to
respond to the idea of emptiness, what is empty for Blue Penguin?
 Using white scarves or fabric and continuing to play the storm sounds allow the children to explore creating
the storm around you as the penguin. Talk about what you can see and hear and how you are feeling. Allow
the children in small groups to take turns at being Blue Penguin in the storm and encourage them to talk
about their experiences.
 Work together to alternate statements describing what Blue Penguin can see, hear, taste, touch or smell
and words describing how he feels. For example:
I see lots of snow
Lonely
I feel cold wind
Frightened
 You might choose to develop this into a performance poem with children being the storm using scarves and
saying the senses lines with one or several children being the Blue Penguin and saying the feeling words.
Revisiting ‘Role on the Wall’ and Shared writing - Composing words of advice:
 Read aloud the story again to Blue Penguin was left all alone. His days were filled with emptiness.
 Invite the children to suggest further thoughts to be added to the Role on the Wall and use a different colour to
show progression in their thinking.
 Ask the children what they would like to do to support Blue Penguin, he might have replied to their letter or you
might want to ask the children to come up with their own thoughts about what they would like to do. Consider
sending letters, messages or packages or signs of support to Blue Penguin or preparing letter of advice for the
other penguins in the colony.
 Help children to compose and create their own responses to Blue Penguin’s predicament. Encourage them to
justify their ideas, drawing on their own experiences. Give the children an opportunity to prepare for this using
either drama or small world play and offering their advice to either Blue Penguin or the colony. If they are
writing to the other penguins they might like to prepare some questions for them about their behaviour, and
key events in the story so far. You could even run a hot seating session with an adult in role as a member of the
colony.
 You might want to take this opportunity to develop a friendship messaging centre in the classroom for children
to write supportive and friendly messages to each other.
Visualisation
 In advance of this session ensure that you know whether there are children in the setting who suffer from night
terrors or experience nightmares. You might choose for those children to do this session with their key person
one on one or in a small group with other children with similar experiences.
 Re-read the story so far and read on to: In this dream a beautiful white whale came and rescued Blue Penguin
and took him away from his lonely place.
 Invite the children to talk about what dreams are. What do they feel like? What types of dream do you have?
Where do dreams come from? Record their responses in the Class Journal.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
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Move on to consider Blue Penguin’s dream. What type of dream is Blue Penguin having? How do you think it’s
making him feel? Where would Blue Penguin want to go? What would be there?
Discuss the beautiful white whale. Who is he? What type of character does he seem to be? How do you know?
Draw on the children’s knowledge about whales, they might notice that it is unusual for a whale to be white.
Discuss what being rescued might mean for Blue Penguin. You might want to extend this discussion to include
traditional tales that feature helpers in such as Cinderella and Aladdin. What do they think the whale will do in
the dream? Where will he take the Blue Penguin? How will the whale make the Blue Penguin feel better?
You might want to provide the children with dream making or saving activities including making dream jars or
dream catchers or you might spend some time finding shapes in clouds and creating dream stories with the
things the children see. Some children might enjoy keeping a dream diary, drawing or writing about their
dreams.
Invite the children to draw Blue Penguin’s dream or another dream that will make him feel better or if they feel
comfortable to share it a dream that makes them feel better. Record these dreams on a Moon on the Working
Wall. Alternatively, you might want to think of a way you could send the dreams to Blue Penguin.
Rhymes and songs and Paired reading – matching spoken word to the printed word and exploring sounds
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Discuss favourite songs and rhymes with the children. How does hearing their favourite song make them feel?
How does singing make them feel? Is there a song they like to sing when they feel sad or anxious to make
themselves feel better? Is there a song that reminds them of being happy? Note these thoughts in the class
journal.
Re-read and read on to Blue Penguin made up a song about the white whale from his dream. Each morning he
sang it across the ocean.
Share the sound of penguins and whales ‘singing’ with the children
Penguin sounds
https://www.freesound.org/people/al.barbosa/sounds/150861/
https://www.freesound.org/people/stormpetrel/sounds/179589/
Whale sounds
https://www.freesound.org/people/listeningtowhales/sounds/333105/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rC-DfuwN8c
Talk about how the different animals sound; Are the sounds short or long? High or low? Long or short? Fast or
slow? Are there lots of different sounds or one repeated?
Note the children’s thoughts in the journal.
You could build on these sound investigations by sharing books that explore sounds such as Polar Bear, Polar
Bear What Do You Hear? by Eric Carle (Puffin), What the Ladybird Heard by Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks
(Egmont) and Tanka, Tanka, Skunk! by Steve Webb (Red Fox) and exploring the song of other animals in your
local environment.
Discuss with the children how Blue Penguin’s song might sound. Would he include whale noises to let the whale
know it was for him? Invite the children to use their bodies or simple instruments to find a sound that they
think might go with the song and explain why.
Work with the children to create the lyrics for the song. What would Blue Penguin want to say? The children
can then be invited to add lyrics over the top of their sounds using spoken word or by creating the mood of the
line with the sounds. You might even explore translating lyrics into whale language by beating out the syllables
using their song sound.
Once the children are happy with their song, record it so it can be listened to and revisited.
You might create a simple notation together so the children can play Blue Penguin’s song independently.
Invite the children to share some of their favourite songs from home. You could record and build these into
class collection of core stories, songs and rhymes that the children can listen to and practice matching spoken
to printed word in familiar contexts. You can engage parents with this by inviting them to provide a recording,
with their child, and words for their rhyme or song. This collection can build over the course of the year.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Gallery walk and roleplay
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In advance of the session copy and enlarge the illustrations from the pages Blue Penguin made up a song…,
Each day she came a little closer to listen., One day she spoke to Blue Penguin and Each day Blue Penguin taught
little penguin a bit more of the song. Don’t include the text. You might want to create several sets of these
pictures.
Invite the children to predict what might happen now that Blue Penguin is singing his song? Make a note of
their predictions in the class journal.
Arrange these pictures in sequence on the wall or on the floor of the classroom. Invite the children to visit each
picture in turn with a partner and talk about what they think is happening. Encourage the children to use clues
such as body language, how big or small the penguins look, what their facial expressions are like etc.
Once the children have explored the images, invite them to role play the scene with one person playing Blue
Penguin and one playing Little Penguin. What are they saying to each other in each of the pictures?
Photograph each element of the children’s drama and ask them to record what the penguins were saying either
as a sound track to the pictures using a computer or iPad or by creating speech bubbles that can go alongside
the photographs.
Re-read and read aloud to ‘Will you teach us to sing too?’
Respond to illustration
 Re-read the whole book, from the beginning and up until: ‘Will you teach us to sing too?’
 Discuss with the children what has happened, using key questions to consolidate thinking: What does it mean to
become friends? What has Blue Penguin had to do to become friends with Little Penguin? Is he right to make
friends with her? How do you know? Invite the children to draw connections with their own experiences and
with other stories. Note their responses in the class journal.
 Discuss what has happened with the other penguins? What’s made them change their minds? Do the children
think Blue Penguin should make friends with them?
 Share the next spread showing the whale and the penguin colony. What do the children think is happening
here? Compare this image to the one of Blue Penguin on his own in the storm. What has changed? Consider
how many penguins they can see, what the weather is like, what colours they can see. What do the children
think this means?
 Spend some time thinking about the whale. You might want to share what the children know about whales, and
how they live. Explain that white Beluga whales are rare and are famous for their singing voices. You might
want to share this video of Beluga whales swimming
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/exploreorg/beluga-whales-swimming-eorg What do the children
think the whale is there for? What would life with the whale be like?
 Read on to ‘Don’t leave us you’re our friend’
Hotseating and Offering advice
 Re-read to ‘Don’t leave us you’re our friend’
 Spend some time working on questions that the children would like to ask the whale and the penguins in the
colony. What would Blue Penguin want to know before he makes a decision? How can he find out?
 Once the questions are prepared, invite 2 adults to be in role either with a symbolic costume or using a puppet
or toy to answer the questions that the children have designed. Allow opportunities for the children to ask
follow up questions.
 Once the hotseating session is finished, invite the children to share what they think Blue Penguin should do. You
might set up the scene from the illustration in a tuff tray and give the children Blue Penguin cut outs with their
names on to vote for their decision.
 Read on to ‘You’re a penguin like us.’ Does that change any of the children’s minds? What has made the
penguins say that? Who or what has changed their minds?
 The children might want to write letters of advice to Blue Penguin to help him make his decision.
 Read the whole story to the end.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Creating a Class Song of Friendship
 Share pictures of the children playing together and talk about what makes them good friends to each other. List
these qualities as the children discuss them.
 Invite the children to pick their favourite and create an illustrated page with that quality shown on it.
 Once the children have created their pages group them together and using either the If you’re happy and you
know it model from before switching penguin for your class name or a similar song such as This is the way we
create a class song of friendship.
 As well as creating a performance you might include the song friendship at the beginning of the day or before
lunch or playtime to reaffirm the class’s relationship with each other.
Shared reading, revisiting and retelling
 Invite the children to build the world of the story using the resources inside and outside the classroom. Plan
what they will need and what they might use.
 Provide props or puppets to be characters in the story.
 Read the story on several occasions, encouraging the children to chime in as they become more confident with
key phrases in the story. Use the props to support your retellings. You might even model retelling the story
without the book with the children supporting you to remember the sequence of events.
 Encourage the children to revisit the story using the classroom resources to support them. Provide extra copies
of the book, alongside the props to support the children’s retelling and early attempts at reading. The
familiarity of the story will be extremely enabling as the children begin to focus on the print.
 Some children might want to make a Story Box creating their own version of the environment within which to
retell the story.
Storymapping and Storytelling
 Explain to the children that you would like them to help you map out the story as it will help to retell the story.
 Ask the children to retell the story orally to a partner, establishing the main events in order as the story unfolds.
 With the children’s input, swiftly map out the key events on large paper. For this story, you might also want to
record how Blue Penguin is feeling at each moment.
 Invite the children to consider how the whale helps Blue Penguin, would the story have been possible without
him?
 Recall the songs throughout the story and add to the story map to support the storytelling.
 You might also provide a variety of ways for the children to record their own version of the story including
simple zig-zag books, large rolls of paper to create giant Story Maps and cameras to record the sequence of
events in the role-play or small world play environments.
 Encourage the children to retell the story using the resources they have made.
Shared writing, bookmaking and publishing: a new story for Blue Penguin and Little Penguin
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Ask the children what they like to do with their friends. Note these ideas.
Invite the children to predict what Blue Penguin and Little Penguin might do together now they are friends.
Provide the children in pairs with a puppet of Little Penguin and Blue Penguin and invite them to play together
in the icy environments in the classroom. You might also give them a camera to record what they do.
Using the photographs and the children’s ideas as stimulus, model how some of the adventures Blue Penguin
and Little Penguin have been on can be written up into a story using shared writing.
Leave out simple books for the children to write and illustrate their own adventures. Some children might want
to create a photo story using the computer and the pictures they have taken.
Other ideas and Activities:
Phonological Awareness:
1) Rhythm and Rhyme:
 The children could be encouraged to use ‘whale language’ to beat/click out the rhythms of nursery
rhymes or each other’s names and see if their friends can guess.
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
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Share penguin songs and rhymes:
o Have you ever seen a penguin come for tea?
http://www.songsforteaching.com/actionparticipation/penguindancechant.htm
o
Six Little Penguins
Six little penguins off an iceberg did dive,
One bumped his beak, then there were five.
Five little penguins swam the ocean floor,
One saw a whale, then there were four.
Four little penguins spun around, whee-ee!
One spun off, then there were three!
Three little penguins, with nothing to do,
One went fishing, then there were two.
Two little penguins, having lots of fun,
One fell off, then there was one.
One little penguin, when the day was done,
Went home to sleep, then there were none.
o
There are a variety of others here
http://www.canteach.ca/elementary/songspoems25.html
Use the rhymes and songs session in the sequence to support the building up of a class collection of
favourites and support the children to teach each other their favourite songs and rhymes.
2) Sound Discrimination:
 Use the different sounds of the penguin and the whale as an opportunity to discuss different types
of sound.
 You could build on these sound investigations by sharing books that explore sounds such as Polar
Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear? by Eric Carle (Puffin), What the Ladybird Heard by Julia
Donaldson and Lydia Monks (Macmillan) and Tanka, Tanka, Skunk by Steve Webb (Red Fox) and
exploring the song of other animals in your local environment.
3) Instrument and Voice Sounds:
 Create a soundscape to portray key events and moments of anticipation in the story.
 Explore how to replicate penguin and whale sounds using simple percussion and the children’s own
voices.
4) Opportunities to explore language:
 The book includes a wide range of interesting verbs; dive, jump, catch, wander, rescue, sing, teach,
play, arrive, hear, which provides an opportunity to explore verbs in an active way when describing
what the penguins are doing and orally rehearse with the children how these words behave in
different tenses sing/sang/sung for example.
5) Use and Application of Phonics at Phases 2-4:
Phase 2 words:
big, bit, but, did, had, him , his, in, is, it, let, not, of, up, us
Phase 3 words:
born, far, feel, fish, for, night , now, sang, see, sing, song, that, then, things, this, too, will, with, yes
This text provides particular opportunities to explore /ng/ and /th/ digraphs at Phase 3 through ‘sing’ and
‘song’ with /ng/, plus ‘that’, ‘then’ and ‘this’ with the voiced /th/ and ‘things’ and ‘with’ with the unvoiced
/th/
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.
Phase 4 words:
best, from, thank
High frequency words:
a, called, don't, have, very, about , and, come, like, my , she, we, all, are, day, he, here, I, little, me, old, one,
said, so , the, there, they, to, was, were , when, you, your
©The Centre for Literacy in Primary Education.
You may use this teaching sequence freely in your school but it cannot be commercially published or reproduced or used for anything other than educational purposes
without the express permission of CLPE.