The Great Penguin Heist
Imagination
The Great Penguin Heist is a free, NAPLAN-aligned imagination writing resource for Australian primary students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).
It was a quiet day at the aquarium, or at least that’s what Ethan thought. He’d always loved the penguins—watching them waddle, slide, and dive through the water. But today, something was different. From the corner of his eye, he noticed one penguin leading the others in a strange, synchronised march. With a small map tucked in its flippers, the penguin seemed to be guiding the group toward a hidden tunnel. Ethan blinked, unsure if he was imagining it, but the more he watched, the clearer it became—something big was happening in the penguin exhibit, and he was the only one who could help.
The complication
- Ethan tries to tell the aquarium staff, but they don’t believe him. Now, he’s the only one who can stop the penguins from escaping.
- The penguins are cleverer than Ethan thought—every time he gets close to stopping them, they manage to outsmart him with their teamwork.
- As Ethan follows the penguins through the tunnel, he discovers that the aquarium is hiding something even bigger than the penguin escape.
What's in the full resource
- Complications
- Creative Twists
- Vocabulary Support
- Sentence Starters
- Dialogue Prompts
- Writing Challenges
- Sentence Variety
- Writing Checklist
- Reflective Questions
- Collaborative Writing Ideas
- Printable teacher and student PDFs
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