Elementary students love reading books with animal characters. The book Spark by Jenny Offill and Chris Allelhauns is an adorable book about a girl that gets a pet sloth. This is a great mentor text for teaching reading and writing skills in the elementary classroom. Students in first, second and third grade will love reading this story about an unusual pet. - Jodi and the Starts With a Story Team
SUMMARY
Sparky! Is a book about a young girl who wants a pet, but her mother keeps telling her no. She is willing to get any pet, that is how much she wants one. Finally, her mother promises she can get a pet if it doesn’t need to be walked, bathed or fed. Determined, the young girl goes to the library to research the perfect pet and discovers the sloth. This animal is very lazy and eats the leaves off trees. Soon enough, her sloth is delivered and she names it Sparky. Quickly, she learns Sparky is very lazy when he loses every game they play. The girl feels discouraged when a classmate says Sparky isn’t a good pet because he can’t do tricks. The girl decides to hold a Sloth Extravaganza and tries to teach Sparky tricks. The show does not go as she hoped, the only trick Sparky can do is play dead. At the end of the story, the girl learns to appreciate Sparky for who he is and enjoy his company.
USE THIS BOOK TO TEACH:
Here are some of the topics our lessons and activities for Sparky include. There are many other skills covered in our resource as well!
- Practice making inferences throughout the story. This helps students strengthen their understanding of a text.
- Teach students to ask questions before, during and after reading.
- Ask students to write their opinion on having a pet sloth.
- Have students write about another pet the girl in this book could have.
- Teach students how to identify base words.
- Use this book to teach a lesson on capitalization and punctuation.
- Discuss the importance of honesty and trust.
NO-PREP PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES:
If you are looking for “ready to go” activities for the first day of school, be sure to check out the book companion. With it you’ll receive all of the following resources to align with this specific book:
- 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
If you are thinking about getting the book Sparky for your classroom library or already have it, you’re going to love these lessons and activities. Teachers can use these resources to plan engaging and comprehensive read aloud lessons that accompany this story.
GET THE PRINTABLE ACTIVITIES
ADDITIONAL BOOK SUGGESTIONS
You and your students will also love these similar books:
- Grumpy Monkey by Suzanne Lang
- Not Norman by Kelly Bennett
- Alfie by Thyra Heder
- Not Norman by Kelly Bennett
TRY OUT A SAMPLE COMPANION
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