Dog Days at The Virtual Vine

Dog Days

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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