This month we read the book “Shark in the Park” by Nick Sharratt. It’s a fun story about a kid named Timothy Pope who looks through his telescope and thinks he sees “a shark in the park.” A die-cut hole (on the cover and throughout) zeros in on what he thinks in each case is a shark fin; however once you turn the page, you discover it wasn’t a shark after all!
I decided to create a game inspired by this fun book and made shark fins with alphabet letters on them. I also made a “pretend” telescope for my daughter. She then looked through it to find her own “shark in the park”, however when turning over the fin, she finds out it wasn’t a shark after all…it was just the letter _____! It was a fun way for her to begin learning her lower case letters.
Supplies:
- Book: “There’s a Shark in the Park” by Nick Sharratt
- Cardstock Paper (to print out shark fin letters…see links at end of this post)
- Scissors
- Paper towel tubes (I used two full rolls, but you can cut one in half)
- Paint (optional)
- Washi tape (or regular tape is fine)
- Shark Pattern (Lowercase Alphabet) Printable
- Shark Pattern (Uppercase Alphabet) Printable
- Shark Pattern (Numbers) Printable
Directions:
First paint paper towel tubes to make your telescope. I decided to make it fun and painted it a pretty fuchsia.
While waiting for the paint to dry, print out these shark fin alphabet cards and or number cards onto card stock paper. I have made cards for Lower-case letters , Upper-case letters & Numbers 1-30 (see links above to download the free printables). Then cut them out.
After the paper towel tubes are dry, I cut a slit down the center of one and overlapped its edges, until it fit inside the other tube.
I then taped it down with washi tape (or regular tape is fine). I liked the print so much, I ended up covering the entire second tube with the washi tape. (not pictured here).
I also put some washi tape around the ends.
This is what our telescope looked like once I was finished.
As she looked around for a shark fin she found MOM!
She spotted a shark fin and shouted “There’s a shark in the park!” And when she grabbed it….
“It wasn’t a shark! It was the letter K!”
I hope you enjoyed our alphabet game. If you have a fun activity that goes with a Nick Sharratt book, please join our linky party below!
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