Penguin Problems by Jory John
What you’ll need
- A copy of Penguin Problems
- A “snow cave”
Age Level
The words in the story are short and simple but the lesson it teaches would benefit children of any age.
Teaching from a cave
If, like me, you feel the need to spice up your online learning a little, I can highly recommend creating a cave and teaching from there for the day. You don’t even really need to do much. Make a cave, sit inside and see what happens. Add a few books to the mix, a torch, some snacks. The class could discuss what they think you’ll find outside the cave. Maybe they could make their own caves and write instructions teaching others how to do the same. The possibilities are endless.
Inspired by a pile of white sheets that looked a lot like an ice cave I decided to head to Antarctica with my class. Luckily on the day lockdown seemed imminent, I grabbed a pile of books from our school library to take home just in case and amongst the treasure was Penguin Problems.
Reading Penguin Problems
Penguin Problems is a quirky wee tale that I’ll admit didn’t instantly grab me. A small penguin, wanders along moaning
about everything. “I waddle too much.” “The ocean smells too salty today.” “It’s too bright out here.” Eventually he meets a very wise Walrus who suggests that maybe his life isn’t so terrible, that there are things he could really enjoy. There’s a great juxtaposition, after pages of simple single Penguin sentences to reach a page full of Walrus’s wise speech, including gems like, “Have you noticed way the mountains are reflected in the ocean like a painting?”
What was so perfect about Penguin Problems is that just this week there’s been lots of chat in my class about how bored everyone is and how they want to go back to school. We’ve shared ideas for things we can do when we’re 
feeling a bit sad, lonely or bored. My school also ran some great professional development this week on student wellbeing, including activities based around the book, How full is your bucket?
Penguin Problems lends itself perfectly to discussion around looking at the positives rather than the negatives and thinking of all the things you’re grateful for.
Antarctica Activity Ideas
Because we were going somewhere cold, before we left for Antarctica everyone put on warm clothes. I had my ski gear including, beanie, jacket, goggles and gloves and my class all got wrapped up in puffer jackets and woolly hats. We sang an
action song, Cold Hands to get ourselves warmed up and then we headed off to the snow. For no logical reason, we Row, row, rowed our boat there. On arrival in Antarctica we discovered blizzard conditions but luckily we found my ice cave and went inside. Penguin Problems was there ready and waiting for us and so from my ice cave we learnt about poor Penguin and all his problems. I’ll admit now that my well planned lessons often go astray, and in this case my plan to have a great follow up discussion about what we’d learned from the story was derailed by the fact that my class had spotted Squeaky (my mouse) in the cave by this stage and all they wanted to do is see what Squeaky could do in the ice cave. I’m sure you will manage to wrangle your class into worthwhile discussion much better than I did! To finish this nonsensical adventure we went outside of the ice cave and danced to Boogie Wonderland from Happy Feet.
Other Possibilities
Use an online drawing video to learn how to draw penguins with your class.
Because we’re in lockdown, I set my class the task of building their own caves at home. I showed them how I’d created my ice cave and shared pictures of other ideas. The photos that came through of the home caves were delightful, in some cases, the whole family got involved. Thanks Wei, for letting me share this gorgeous photo of your boys in their cave.
Borrow a copy of Penguin Problems from Auckland Libraries.
Buy a copy of Penguin Problems from Fishpond.
What you’ll need
The concept is seemingly so simple and so clever. Each letter of the alphabet has its turn and pairs of words create a sentence. The second key word is the first key word minus a letter. I’m sure this could be explained more precisely using a mathematical formula like wo(A)rd + word = a hilarious sentence. Actually, let me just give some examples.
illustration cleverly adds all sorts of additional meaning.
Before reading, I usually explain that this book is very clever. I don’t spell out exactly how it works, but after a few pages some of the kids start to get it. If you’re going to use it for a follow up activity you might want to read it once, just enjoying the nonsense, and then work through a second time, really explicitly talking through how the pairs of words work.
Here is one I loved, created by a Year 5 student. “Take away the L and the WORLD is a WORD.”
What you’ll need
involved a toilet roll (or paper towel roll if you’re in the classroom), filled with rice. I stuck a bottle top in one end, although in other online versions I’ve seen both ends were squeezed shut in different directions. Instead of using musical instruments to retell the story, you could make and decorate your own noise makers. Different outer shells, like glass or plastic jars would create a different sound and could represent the different animals. Or you could experiment with how to make the shaker create a variety of sounds using long slow movements, short sharp snaps, or little tiny shakes.
What you’ll need
the book. It is their job to write the words to go with the picture. If you wanted to add an extra element of challenge, you could choose names for the children and creatures as a class. Model writing the opening sequence as the boy arrives at the pool and dives in and and then see how well the pieces of story go together at the end.
What you’ll need
Retelling the story with props and noise makers is the best. I’ve used it with classes online where they brought along three soft toys and something noisy. In the classroom it would be even better. Probably the easiest option would be to split the class into groups of 4. Everybody either makes a dog, cat, mouse or a lady. These could be drawn and cut out, or an entire art activity could revolve around character creation. Use crayon and dye, cut out a front and back in an oven mitt shape and staple them together for a hand puppet effect. In addition you could make noisy things. This could also be an entire art/music lesson. There are loads of ideas for making homemade 
Read the story and the characters join in at the appropriate times. The house turns around and around several times so get everyone up and spinning. For the lovely noisy parts, let it rip!
you come up with your own lesson for this one because I’ve got a pie hot out of the oven waiting for me. Share your ideas in the comments.
What you’ll need
Art Possibilities
If autumn leaves are light on the ground, you can head in a slightly different direction. Let the kids collect any interesting things they find outside (you’d be amazed how many pieces of rubbish get collected as “treasure”). This can then be turned into a picture using a hot glue gun, with extra detail added using a black pen. Or like Jack they can just write the word, “detail!”
What you’ll need
A small mouse runs into the jungle warning all the animals that Big Bro is on his way and “he’s rough, he’s tough, and he’s big.” In a classic game of Chinese whispers, each animal then passes the message on to a much bigger animal. By the end, a jungle-ful of animals are quaking in their boots, waiting for the arrival of Big Bro. When he finally arrives, it’s something of an anticlimax as he turns out to be a slightly-larger-than-normal mouse. Don’t worry, he cements his position as a tough guy with a ground-rocking, “Boo!” This book is a marvel for its illustrations. The perspective shifts, often with the audience at ground level, waiting with anticipation for Big Bro to arrive. It’s a hoot to read with fear, followed by disdain, followed by fear. Plus there’s plenty of opportunity for you to attempt a range of animal voices.
went on a bus ride to the jungle. As an ex-storytelling librarian I had plenty of rhymes and songs up my sleeve so today’s classroom ideas will be storytelling themed and could work equally well for in class or online. 
the song and had the spider on the floor, on my leg, on my neck and on my face before he jumped down again. This is another one that can make kids scream when you’re doing it in person, so proceed with caution.
My class had been warned, we might spot dangerous animals, so they would need to be ready to roar really loudly to try to scare animals away. Several times my crocodile puppet made an appearance and the kids roared the house down. 
What you’ll need
happens. A little boy is trying to catch a star, he tries and tries, unsuccessfully. Eventually he sees one in the water but can’t reach it. “Ahh…” you think, “a reflection, how delightful, but sad. He’ll never be able to pick that up.” But wait… on the sand, the little boy spies a star and he picks it up. (I have to confess I don’t have the book in front of me, but hopefully I have the basic premise correct here.) The kids fairly quickly realise that he’s found a starfish and it all feels very sweet and satisfactory.
What you’ll need
(I’m embarrassed to admit how long this can go on for) talking about the time I lived on a 
Make it work for you. 
Storytelling
What you’ll need
question, “Why are you sitting in that box…” which leads to a reveal on the next page, with the bunny saying, “This is not a box,” and doing something delightfully imagination-y like pretending the box is a racing car. For each page you can have the kids guess what new and exciting object the bunny has come up with. There is a spread of four images at the end. It’s fun before turning to this page to brainstorm all the other things the box might be.
introduction to talking about shapes; numbers of sides, corners etc. You can then sort a giant pile of shapes by various methods. Your end goal is to have a pile of rectangles that you can use for writing.
Writing
