The Lost Little Penguin by Rebekah White is an engaging and informative non-fiction text that tells the true story of a young kororā found far from home at an Auckland shopping mall. Through a blend of narrative storytelling, photographs, maps, and factual explanations, the text follows the penguin’s rescue, rehabilitation, and return to the sea, while introducing readers to the work of wildlife carers and the challenges facing native species in Aotearoa New Zealand.

By combining a real-life rescue story with clear scientific information about penguin life cycles, habitats, and threats such as heatwaves, predators, and human impact, the text supports students to build empathy, curiosity, and understanding of conservation. It encourages learners to think critically about how people can help protect vulnerable animals and care for the natural world, making it a rich text for integrated literacy and science learning.

 

This pack contains a range of structured literacy activities including

• Spelling rules ck / dge / drop the e / y as a consonant or vowel
• Sounds of -ed
• Exploring parts of language - adverbs, adjectives, nouns, verbs etc
• Doubling or not when adding -ing, -ed
• Floss rules
• Compound words
• Identifying and naming suffixes
• Identifying and naming prefixes
• Vowel teams
• Root words
• Controlling 'r'
• Diagraphs
• Schwa words
• Ghost diagraphs
• -oo- and -oo- / -au and -ow / 
• Hard and soft c and g
• Common subordinating conjunctions
• And much more!!

 

Curriculum Phase: Phase 2

Year Level: Year 4

English: reading for meaning, locating and synthesising information, making inferences, identifying key ideas and supporting detail, understanding text features and structure, interpreting visual information, and supporting responses with evidence from the text

Science – Living World: life cycles of animals, habitats and nesting, animal behaviour and adaptation, human impact on ecosystems, predators and survival, conservation of native species

Sustainability: kaitiakitanga and care for wildlife, protecting endangered species, responsible human behaviour, responding to environmental change, long-term stewardship of the natural world

Text type: Non-fiction, informational article, real-life narrative

Key words include: animal rescue, conservation, endangered species, habitats, heatwaves, kororā, life cycles, little penguins, native animals, nesting, nests, non-fiction, predators, real-life narrative, sustainability, wildlife protection