The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine by C. and S. Dunlop

March 17 of each year is famously known for being St. Patrick’s Day. What very 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.

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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!

🍎 Title: The Truck That Wanted to Be a Submarine

🍎 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.

This post is one of a series hosted by Witty Hoots. Visit 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:

• Book: What's an Og? By Mary Barry
• Book: The Mermaid and the Grumpy Old Clam by Kirk Kirkpatrick
• Book + Craft: Will You Always Be Here? by Nadine Damo
• Book + Craft: Zester the Zebra and His Missing Stripes by Christen Conrad
• Book + Slime Recipe: Goo on My Shoe by Jacqui Shepherd
• Book + FREE Printable: Great Cape o’ Colors by Karl Beckstrand

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