Five Little Sharks Swimming in the Sea
Author: Steve Mezger
Illustrated By: Laura Bryant
Genre: Fiction Picture Book, Comedy and Humor
Grade Level: PreK - Second Grade
Theme: Counting and Numbers, Early Learning, Animals
Summary: The popular "Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" rhyme is remained here with sharks misbehaving. The sharks bump into manatees, get stuck on the ocean floor, bang their tails, get lost playing hide-and-seek, and eat too much fish--all resulting in mother shark calling the doctor, time and time again. In the end, the sharks all return to health and swim happily in the sea.
Pre-Reading Activity: Sing the popular song, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, and ask the class if they think there can be any other stories that can be written using this idea. Talk about if monkeys really do jump on beds. Also ask, can monkey's really use telephones? Hold up the book Five Little Sharks Swimming in the Sea and ask predictions as to what trouble the sharks can get into in the sea.
Post-Reading Activity: Discuss if any of the children's predictions were illustrated in the story. Make a chart of what happened to all of the sharks or make a chart of all of the rhyming words. Pick seven children and have them come to the front of the room. Choose 5 to be sharks, one to be the mother, and one to be the doctor and act out the story in front of the class. You could even goes as far as bringing in an art project making doctor hats and shark fins.
Reflection: I really enjoy this book and really enjoyed sharing it with younger children. I have had children act it out and we would have to do it over and over so all children would get a turn. It is a real easy read and has great repetition so that even beginner readers can read this book. The one criticism that I have of this book is that although there is rhyming in it, the end sentence of the page does not rhyme so it is hard to get rhythm in the story when doing a read aloud. Below is an example...
Two little sharks playing hide-and-seek.
One got lost and was missing for a week.
The mother called the doctor and the doctor said,
"No more sharks playing hide-and-seek!"
As you can see in the above excerpt from the book, the red words seek and week rhyme, while the blue words said and seek do not.
Steve Metzger is the bestselling author of more than sixty children's books, including "Detective Blue" (starred review from School Library Journal), "The Mixed-Up Alphabet," and "Skeleton Meets the Mummy." He is a former teacher of young children and currently enjoys reading his stories during school visits. Steve had a typical 1950s childhood growing up in Queens, NY. He currently lives in Manhattan (not far from Central Park) with his wife, teenage daughter, and Biscuit, a talkative cat.
