Teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Clark the Shark will love this post. It includes the book summary, teaching ideas, resource recommendations, and more.
With themes of impulse control and making good choices, this Clark the Shark picture book by Bruce Hale is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your room too!
Engage Your Students with Clark the Shark Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Clark the Shark.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with Clark the Shark reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
CLARK THE SHARK SUMMARY
Clark the Shark is about a shark named Clark who loves school and loves his life. He gets really excited when he is at school and has a hard time controlling himself. He talks really loudly, plays really hard, gets overly excited, and has a hard time making good choices. His classmates start to be annoyed with him.
Clark’s teacher Mrs. Inkydink teaches him that being excited is okay but to remember to be cool at school. Clark repeats rhymes to himself to help him remember the rules of school. This helps him control his impulses and his friends at school love to see this change in him.
CLARK THE SHARK LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for Clark the Shark, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based Clark the Shark reading comprehension questions focus on:
- analyzing character
- summarize/retell
- making connections
- plot | problem – solution
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- impulse control
- making good choices
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- common and proper nouns
- action verbs
- synonyms
CLARK THE SHARK ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
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BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for Clark the Shark?
- Lexile® Measure: 500L
- Guided Reading Level: M
- DRA Level: 20-24
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.7
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Bruce Hale. It was illustrated by Guy Francis.
What genre is Clark the Shark?
It is a comedy and humor book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 32 pages long.
