
Dog Days

Information provided on this
page for classroom use only; not for publication.
thevirtualvine.com 2003
Books
Clifford series
Good Dog, Carl -
Alexandra Day
Spot Goes Splash! and
other stories - Eric Hill
Where's Spot? - Eric
Hill
Go, Dog, Go! - P.D.
Eastman
The Outside Dog -
Charlotte Pomerantz
Little Puppy What Do
You See? - Cuddly Duck Productions
Dogs - Gail Gibbons
Walk the Dog - Bob
Barner
The Puppy Who Wanted a
Boy - Jane Thayer
Please, Puppy, Please
- Spike & Tonya L. Lee
As a SPED resource
teacher, I'm providing support for my Kindergarten students. Their
teachers are doing Letter of the Week, so I'm reinforcing their
instruction. This week is "Dd" week. So I thought I'd share
some of the activities that I did with the students this week.
I chose to
reinforce/instruct "Dd" through connections made to Dogs.
The first thing I did was to introduce our D Letter Bag. Inside the
bag I had a ceramic duck, a plastic dinosaur, and a dime (slim pickins in
the D Bag.) As I took the items from the bag, I let the students
name them, reminding them that the name would start with a Dd and the /d/
sound. The dime was the hardest as they called it everything but a
dime. Then if they could tell me the letter and sound that the item
started with, they were allowed to choose an item and put it back in the
bag. Weird what motivates little kids! ;)
We also read
Clifford The Big Red Dog and talked about what letters Clifford, Big,
and Dog begin with. Then we made Clifford "faces" from red
triangles. Of course we talked about the triangle as well.
Ok, it's SEVERAL years
later and we did this project again with the triangle dog faces.
Only I couldn't
remember exactly what they were supposed to look like and I hadn't kept
one for a model. :(
So they look kind of
"RUFFF!" :o} And it isn't Clifford, just a regular dog. They
did put black spots on their ears which you can't see. The circle is
supposed to be their dog tag and each one named their dog. If we
keep going, this is going to turn into a shapes dog! :)

You start with a big
triangle. I think the regular size construction paper was too small
when I tried making it into a square and cutting the square in half to
make triangles. So I used the large construction paper. Then
show students how to fold the each corner down to create an ear.
It's hard to get the ears the same size so I helped them. I tried
two different ways and actually having them point away from the face is
better than matching up to the face. (maybe you'll understand that
when you start folding ... practice ahead of time) Once the ears are
folded down, show them how to draw on the face by modeling. Add
spots to ears. Then add the tag.
Then we counted dog
bones (Milk Bone dog biscuits) out into bowls. They're only working
up to 4, so I labeled 4 bowls with the numbers 1 - 4 and had them count
the correct number of bones into the bowls.
Today we reread
Clifford, then we wrote the capital D and lowercase d.
Afterwards we matched Ellison cut-out bones with lowercase letters to dogs
with capital letters. Tomorrow we will also match
bones/dogs with numbers/dots. We're also going to sequence dog bones
in the pocketchart with numbers 1 - 4. We also enlarged a picture of
a dog and the students will sort through pictures and put the ones that
begin with /d/ on the picture of the dog. (picture soon) I also made
a sequencing activity on the computer using graphics software. I
chose a picture of a dog and made it three different sizes, then I printed
it onto cardstock and had it laminated. The pictures will be cut
apart, then we'll practice sequencing from smallest to largest.
We're also going to do Spots on the Dog. I have white construction
paper dogs with a number on their collar. The students put black
buttons on each dog to match the number on the collar. The buttons
are the spots on the dog.
On Friday, we're going
to have the most fun! We're going to dig up the Milk Bone bones in
the sandtable. I've taped small slips of paper around each bone and
programmed it with a capital or lowercase letter or a number (A - D, 1 -
4) When they dig up the bone, if they can identify the
number/letter, they get to keep the bones. If they can't identify
it, then we'll identify it and it will go back into the sand to be buried
again. Then we're going to eat Doggy Chow! I've bought all the
stuff, but I haven't actually tried the recipe for this yet. I got
the recipe from
http://www.recipebookonline.com/asp/getrecipe.asp?ID=1365&PR=True.
They call it Puppy Chow. I changed the name to better fit our needs.
Update: My kids LOVED
the Dog Chow! It makes a gallon ziploc bag stuffed full.
If we have time, I
want to do paw prints. I can use them to reinforce counting to 4.
Paint the student's palm and press onto paper. Then paint just the
tips of their fingers (not the thumb). Have them press their fingers
down around the top of the palm print. This should make the 4
"toes". Have them count as they add the prints.
You can also make cute
doggy faces from paperplates, doggy puppets, and headbands with ears.
Go, Dog. Go!:
This is a great book to use in working on position words and also color
words. I hope to create some flannel board or other activities to go
with it to make good use of those opportunities. I'm also going to
read it to my students and have them draw and write about their favorite
part of the story since it is so whimsical. I also have the stuffed
dog that goes with it from Kohl Cares for Kids.
Resource:
The Mailbox K-1
Oct/Nov 2005
Bones for Wags - The
Mailbox K-1 Dec/Jan 2006
Teacher's Helper K
Aug/Sept 2005
Teacher's Helper 1st
Oct/Nov 2003
Leap Frog Press 204
(don't know the book name, it's at school) shape book printable: Dogs Can
February Idea Book -
TF0200
The Mailbox Apr/May
2001
The Mailbox
Aug/Sept 2001
Links:
Time For a Dog Show
printable
http://www.timeforkids.com/TFK/class/pdfs/2007S/070302BPt1.pdf
Printable Dog Book
http://www.saskschools.ca/~ebooks/books/dogs.pdf
Ebook
http://www.saskschools.ca/~ebooks/ebooks/level_1/ebookdogs.pdf
Where's Spot?
(printable story props)
http://www.kizclub.com/storypatterns/spot(C).pdf
http://www.kizclub.com/storypatterns/spot.pdf

I'm going to
fluff this unit up more later.
I only spend 30
- 45 mins. a day with my Ks, so it's not a lot of time to really do
a lot of activities.
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