Scottish Children’s Book Awards
3-7 Bookbug Category (CFE Levels Early and 1, ages 3-7)
Activities to get your pupils excited about the 3-7 shortlist
Contents
Who are these resources for?
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Activity for all books: Shared Reading
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Activities for Robot Rumpus
2
Activities for Lost for Words
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Activities for Princess Penelope and the Runaway Kitten
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Resources for additional support needs
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Who are these resources for?
These resources are designed to be of use to any nursery or primary teacher looking to
assimilate the 3-7 books into the curriculum, and also to create a buzz about the
shortlisted titles and SCBA. They can also be used by local librarians who want to find
some fun activity suggestions for the books.
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Activity for all books
Shared Reading Outcomes for younger pupils: Lit 1-11a. Outcomes for older pupils: Lit 203a, Lit 2-11a, HWB 2-13a,
Shared Reading is a great way for older and younger pupils to share and discover books
together.
Shared Reading involves older pupils reading picture books out loud to younger pupils. It
hands the older pupil the responsibility of making sure a young child enjoys discovering a
book, and is a great boost to older pupils’ confidence, especially if they do not see
themselves as readers initially.
For a complete introduction to shared reading, including case studies, videos and a unit of
activities to take you through the process, check out this page:
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/teachers-librarians/scottish-childrens-bookawards/shared-reading
Activities for Robot Rumpus
Programme some healthy meals into Cook-bot HWB 0-32a, HWB 0-35a, HWB 1-30a,
HWB 2-30a
Come up with a weeks’ worth of healthy recipes to programme into Cook-bot. It will need
step by step instructions too! You can also find out about some foods which you shouldn’t
eat too much of, and get Cook-bot to set some limits on how often you should have these.
Animated automatons Tch 1-03a, Tch 1-04a, Tch 1-12a, Tch 1-14a
Build some robots from recycled materials and animate them using a stop-motion
animation programme. You could build the robots from the book or come up with your
own. Create an animation which shows the robot carrying out its primary function.
If you build an original robot, come up with an advertising slogan like the ones on the
inside cover of the book. You could also write a script for a TV advert for your robot.
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Write a robot story Eng 1-31 a
There’s a great structure for a robot story on page 3 of this resource by Pie Corbett:
http://www.teachprimary.com/resource_uploads/all-systems-go.pdf
Train Book-bot Lit 0-11a, Lit 1-11a, Eng 1-03a
Book-bot isn’t much good at choosing books to read to the girl. Give Book-bot some
suggestions. Talk about the books you read with parents or guardians; which ones do you
like best?
What kind of voice do you think Book-bot has? Do you think it would be a good voice for
reading a book out loud? Imagine you had to train Book-bot how to read a book aloud. It’s
not as simple as people think! How could it make the book entertaining? What kind of
voices could it use? How could it vary the pitch and speed of its voice? Practice reading
some books aloud so you can show Book-bot how it’s done.
Give Wash-bot a scare! Lit 0-14a, Lit 1-14a, SCN 1-02a
Wash-bot gets in a panic when it sees the little girl’s toy crocodile. What other animals can
you think of which might give it a scare? Try to find ones that live in the water. Find out
what countries they live in so you can tell Wash-bot to avoid these countries!
Do you think that the crocodile would really like to eat Wash-bot? Probably not! Find out
about the things that crocodiles and other dangerous animals eat, and explore food
chains.
Activities for Lost for Words
Find a friend and draw a picture Lit 0-09a, Exa 1-02a, Exa 1-03a, HWB 0-01a
Tapir draws pictures of things his friends like. Pair up with someone else in the class, and
ask them about the things they like. You can ask them about their favourite activities, their
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favourite food and their favourite place. Draw a picture of things that they like, and give
them their drawing as a present!
After you have drawn your friend’s favourite things, you could go home and ask an adult
about their favourite things, and draw a picture for them.
Track Tapir down Exa 1-03a, Lit 1-14a, Lit 1-28a
Tapir and his friends can be found in different places across the world. Tapirs live in South
America, hippos and giraffes live in Africa and flamingos live in both of these places.
Plan a journey to go and find each animal. Find each continent on a map, and pick a
country from each one. Use Google Maps to find out how far away the country is, and plan
a journey. What method of travel would you choose, and what route would you take? What
kind of things would you need to pack?
Write a Sun poem Scn 0-06a, Scn 1-04a, Scn 1-06a, Eng 1-31a
Flamingo loves the sun and writes a song about it. Find out about the Sun and Moon. You
could write your own poem from each object’s point of view, or write a ‘shape poem’ –
check out our resources for children’s poet James Carter to help with this:
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/teachers-librarians/teaching-resourcescpd/author-resources/james-carter.
Numeracy MTH 0-13a, MNU 1-11a

Giraffe has a spotted pattern, and many animals have different patterns. Create
your own pattern and make yourself a costume or a hat with the pattern displayed
on it.

Giraffes are very tall animals. Find out exactly how tall they are, and then find out
your own height. How many of you would have to stand on each other’s shoulders
to reach the height of a giraffe?

Hippos are very broad and heavy. Would a hippo fit in your classroom? Find out
how heavy hippos are, and find out your own weight. How many of you would need
to stand on a scale to reach the same weight as a hippo?
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Ecology and Conservation
For pupils working towards level 2, have a look at our resources for Nicola Davies, which
include activities which are possible to do whether you own Nicola’s books or not:
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/learning/teachers-librarians/teaching-resourcescpd/second-level-upper-primary/nicola-davies-ecology-conservation
Further reading
If you and your pupils loved hearing about Tapir and his animal friends, why not have a
browse through some other books about friendship?
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/10-books-about-friendship-3-7
Activities for Princess Penelope and the
Runaway Kitten
Build a palace Tch 0-12a, Tch 0-14a
Imagine you are building your own palace. Construct rooms for the palace out of a
shoebox and other recycled materials. Think about the following things:



What kind of rooms would be in the palace?
How would a prince or princess relax, what would they do for fun, and what rooms
or spaces would they need to do these things?
What different materials might be suitable for different objects in the room?
Woolly Good Fun Exa 1-02a, Exa 1-03a
Decorate your classroom with some woolly crafts! You could make pom poms, or try this
great activity: http://laughingkidslearn.com/2013/08/fun-activity-for-kids-using-wool.html/
Discover hedge wildlife SCN 1-01a
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
The palace has a maze which is made from hedges. Find out about all the different
wildlife which can be found in hedges. You could put your findings into a table with
different headings (insects, mammals, amphibians, etc.), or write a story about
hedge animals: perhaps two animals are fighting over the same space in a hedge,
then decide to work together to build a shelter to protect them from predators.

Some hedges are evergreen and others are deciduous. Find out more about what
this means here: http://www.newtonsapple.org.uk/deciduous-and-evergreen-trees/.
Grow your own small hedge and decide if you want to plant an evergreen or
deciduous hedge. If you’re planting on a publicly accessible site, you may be
eligible for a free pack from the Woodland Trust – find out more here:
https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/plant-trees/in-your-community/
Teachers can find out more here: http://www.hedgelink.org.uk/wildlife-andhedgerows.htm
Tire out your kitten HWB 0-22a
The kitten loves to play with wool and ends up causing all kinds of trouble. It needs to use
up some energy! Talk about the games you love to play at home or at nursery. The kitten
is really fast, and it’s also small: try and think of some games would it be good at. After
this, play some of the games: follow the leader and hide and seek might be good ones to
try.
Play a clapping game which gets gradually faster. What happens to your body temperature
as you exercise? Why is exercise good for you?
Further reading
If you and your pupils loved Princess Penelope’s misadventure, why not check out our list
of 9 princess books: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/reading/book-lists/9-tales-ofprincesses-3-7
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Resources for additional support needs
You can request accessible versions of the 3-7 books from CALL Scotland – check out
their website for more information: http://callcentre.education.ed.ac.uk/
CALL have also produced resources to help speech impaired learners take part in some of
the activities in this resource. You can find these resources at CALL’s website or on the
Scottish Book Trust website here: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/scba/speechimpaired-learners
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