Shark Week -vs- Shark Fest - There's commotion in the ocean

I have been reading lots of blog posts about Shark Week in the U.S. so I decided to investigate more about it.  To be honest, I had never heard of it before and I certainly can't see it taking off in Australia...how wrong was I?!!!

Shark Week was established by the Discovery Channel in the U.S. and is a week devoted to TV viewing about sharks, sometime in July.  Shark Fest is also a series in the U.S. that apparently is competing with Discovery Channel's Shark Week - you can read about the controversy here.

Now there is also Shark Week in Australia, again via Discovery Channel, but it starts on 1 December apparently.  Click on the links to find out more.

I started thinking about my favourite picture books that feature sharks as main characters and two of these are "Nugget and Fang" by Tammi Sauer and "The Three Little Fish and the Big, Bad Shark" by Ken Geist.  

"The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark” is an innovation on “The Three Little Pigs.”

“Nugget and Fang” has parallels to “Finding Nemo” so these are both excellent texts for explicitly teaching text-to-text connections.

Here are some links to resources for each:

"Nugget and Fang"

• YouTube Read-Aloud (There are heaps of different versions if you just do a search)
• Teaching notes
• A craft idea from Honey Bee Books
• Home Page for "Nugget and Fang" (includes a book trailer)
• Classroom discussion guide and poster  (Ooo!  This is good!)

"The Three Little Fish and the Big, Bad Shark"

• YouTube Read-Aloud (Again, there are lots of different versions)
• Teaching notes (free)
• Puppets and readers' theatre script  (These puppets are really cute)

So, to avoid studying, I created a resource for these two picture books that focuses on higher order thinking and reading comprehension.  Click on the image below to find out more.

Here are some other resources you may find useful:

Facts about sharks for kids - YouTube clip (some interesting facts that I didn't know!)

Global shark tracker - interesting...

I still can't see this taking off in Australia, because of all the shark attacks we have over here, however these two picture books are adorable for any time of the year.

"Nugget and Fang" is terrific for individual differences and friendship.  "The Three Little Fish and the Big, Bad Shark" is terrific for fractured fairytales or innovating on texts.

Enjoy!