few people know is that it’s also Submarine Day! Yes, there is a quirky holiday
dedicated to the love of submarines. I recently discovered a cute, little
book would be a fun read aloud for Submarine Day. It’s called
The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine and is written by C. and S.
Dunlop. The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine is about… well… a truck that wanted to be a submarine and its friend who helped it change into one.
Keep reading to learn more about how you can use this story with your
language arts lessons.
About The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine
🍎 Author’s summary: Truck lovers get ready to discover the wonderful
new series from New Zealand’s new favorite children’s author. The characters
that you will be introduced to in this book are… Mr. Luck and his truck that
didn’t want to be a truck! The truck wanted to DIVE! But what does it need to
dive? Well, it will need a hull…and rudders… and much, much more! Can Mr.
Luck help his friend to dive? Download your copy today to find out!
🍎 Author: C. and S. Dunlop
🍎 Illustrator: C. and S. Dunlop
🍎 Publisher: self-published *MAY BE OUT OF PRINT*
🍎 Date: July 14, 2014
🍎 Pages: 18
Language Arts Minilesson
The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine is a children’s book about a
man named Mr. Luck who turns his truck Mellow into a submarine then takes it
for a ride in the ocean. It’s a simple story with one sentence and a related
illustration on each page. But… don’t let the simplicity of the story
surprise you! There are several high-interest vocabulary words for children
to discover. As you read the story with your students, take the time to
discuss any new words your students may not be familiar with.
Some of these high-interest vocabulary words include:
- portholes
- periscope
- giant squid
- shipwreck
- underwater cave
- buried treasure
Enrichment Activity
A fun follow-up activity to reading
The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine is to have your students work
together to make a class book. A class book is a group project that each
student in the class contributes to. Students are given a pre-printed
page with a sentence from the story. The students read the sentences on their pages, create
illustrations to go with them, and add their own words as needed. Class
books can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like them to be. They are
nice additions to a classroom library and students love reading them over
and over.
The class book my students made includes one sentence per page. Each page
contains one sentence that comes from The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine. After reading the story and a quick class discussion, each child was
given a random page to illustrate. Their illustrations needed to reflect
what was happening in the text.
While the students were working on their illustrations, I walked around the
room, asked each student to read their sentences to me and to tell me about
their drawings. When all of the students finished their pages, each one read
their sentences to the rest of the class and showed their pictures. I then
collected the pages, added a laminated cover, and
bound them into a book. This photo shows the cover of the class book and two
sample pages. At the time of these photos, the book hadn’t been laminated or
bound yet. There were a few students who were still finishing up.
To download a FREE copy of the class book (17 pages in all), please click on
the image above. Clicking this image will take you to the
Teachers-Pay-Teachers third-party website. This is a FREE download– no
purchase necessary.
Witty Hoot’s website
to read about other crafts and ideas for Submarine Day.
Did you enjoy reading about The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine?
If so, check out these blog posts about other books and activities for early
readers:
search words: submarine, submersible, under the sea, ocean,
underwater, under water, subs, sub, types of transportation
