Today’s Growing Readers story time was all about dogs.  We used Emma Dodd’s book Dog’s Colorful Day as a launching point.

This is such a wonderful book!  It’s all about a white dog who runs around town having adventures, but everywhere he goes, he manages to get dirty.  By the end of the day, he’s covered in pink ice-cream, brown chocolate, green grass, orange juice, and so much more.

We read the story, and then acted it out using the flannel-graph board.  The children counted spots as the story progressed.  It was so much fun!

We sang songs and learned some fun facts about dogs.  We talked about how dogs leave noseprints, much like we leave fingerprints.  Dogs also have excellent hearing and can hear sound we cannot.  We talked about how many teeth dogs have in their mouths.  Preschool aged children generally have twenty baby teeth, while adult dogs have forty-two teeth.  We talked about the types of food dogs like to eat, and the children enjoyed telling us all about their “real” pet dogs and “pretend” pet dogs.

During craft time, we made our own version of colorful dogs.  The children have learned to raise their hands after they complete each part of our craft project..  When all the children have their hands in the air, we move on to the next step.  This has worked out so well for us!  Completing projects one step at a time keeps the chaos to a minimum, and the children learn to follow directions and wait patiently.

The tops of our dogs open up (they are 1/2 an envelope), so the children filled them with little activity cards to be completed at home.

They loved wearing their colorful little dogs.

After craft time, we read I Love Dogs by Sue Stainton and Bob Staake.  This is a very colorful book with lots of big pictures and few words.  It was the perfect way to end our time together.

We hope you enjoy our story time recaps as much as we enjoy Growing Readers story time!