Let’s get racing! The Speedy Sloth: The Great Race Game has been designed to accompany a whole class reading of the picture book The Speedy Sloth by Rebecca Young. This fun and purposeful game gives students a chance to practise their comprehension skills while engaging in a friendly competition inspired by the story.

The aim of the game is for students to ‘pass’ each of the animals from the story. As they move around the board, they’ll land on animal spaces and answer comprehension questions related to the text. Each time they correctly answer a question, they can mark that animal off on their ‘Animals I Have Passed’ card. The first player to pass all animals and complete their card is the winner!

With no set finish line, students can continue moving around the board until they’ve passed all the animals. It’s the perfect way to make text-based discussion fun, whether you’re working with a small group or the whole class. This game promotes thoughtful discussion, supports listening and speaking skills, and helps students revisit important moments from the book in an engaging way.

Key Learning Outcomes:

• ✅ Strengthen comprehension of narrative texts
• ✅ Answer text-based questions using prior knowledge and inference
• ✅ Develop turn-taking, cooperation, and communication skills
• ✅ Recall key events, characters, and settings from the story
• ✅ Engage in literature-based play to deepen understanding

What’s Included:

• Detailed teacher instructions
• Game board (available in high and low colour versions)
• ‘Animals I Have Passed’ card to track progress
• Comprehension question cards for players to answer
• Optional recording sheets for writing responses

Materials Needed:

• Printed game boards and cards
• Counters for each player
• One die per group
• Pencils for optional recording sheets

How to Use:

1. Print and prepare the game board, question cards, and tracking sheets.
2. Divide students into small groups or play together as a whole class.
3. Players take turns rolling the die and moving around the board.
4. When a player lands on an animal space, they answer a corresponding comprehension question.
5. Each correct answer earns a marker on their ‘Animals I Have Passed’ card.
6. The first player to pass all animals is the winner!

Ideas for Classroom Use:

• 💡 Use as a small group comprehension task after reading the book
• 💡 Incorporate into Book Week celebrations or story study units
• 💡 Rotate through guided reading groups for deeper discussion of text
• 💡 Use the question cards separately in a quiz-style warm-up activity
• 💡 Pair with writing tasks by having students write their own questions

Top Teacher Tips:

• 💛 Laminate the game board and cards for durability and reuse
• 💛 Colour-code question cards based on difficulty for easy differentiation
• 💛 Allow students to create their own animal counters to personalise the game
• 💛 Use as an assessment tool to observe students' recall and comprehension in action

Check out more amazing resources related to The Speedy Sloth in our The Speedy Sloth Book PACKAGE.

Available in our basic fun font and all Australian state fonts.