Harry the Dirty Dog, Gene Zion

Harry is a white dog with black spots until he goes out to play. When he comes back his family does not recognize him, how will he make them know who he is?

Materials

A variety of brushes (floor, nails, vegetable, hair etc)
Glitter, small amount
Harry the dog shape
Pictures of dogs
Oil pastels and watercolor paints

Vocabulary

Buried (too dig a hole and put something inside)
Furiously (with great energy)

Before Reading the Story

Begin a discussion on the importance of keeping our bodies clean. Why do you think you need to brush your teeth, take a bath, and wash your hair? Have you ever gotten really, really dirty? What did you have to do to get clean again? Introduce the story by stating that today’s story is about a dog that got so dirty, his family did not even recognize him. Show the children the cover, can they tell which the dirty dog is (left or right)?

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; shows growing independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands, brushing teeth, and toileting. AND Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Reading the Story

Look at the picture of Harry playing in the street. Ask the children if this is a safe place for a dog or a child to play? On the page with the coal chute, make sure to point it out to the children. As you read, stop on the various pages and ask questions. Do you know what coal is used for? When you are tired and hungry, where do you go? Do you think Harry’s family will ever recognize him?

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; builds awareness and ability to follow basic health and safety rules such as fire safety and pedestrian safety, and responding appropriately to potentially harmful objects, substances, and activities. AND Language Development/Speaking & communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, nedds, questions, and for other varied purposes.

After Reading the Story

Survey the children by asking them to raise their hands if they like taking a bath. Raise their hands if they like to take a shower. Raise their hands if they like to take a sponge bath. Make a graph that shows the results of this simple survey.

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to use language to compare numbers of objects with terms such as more, less, greater than, fewer, equal to.

Bring out your collection of brushes. Hold up one brush at a time and ask the children if they can tell what they are used for. Have them pantomime the action.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences.

Discovery

Put a small amount of glitter onto each child’s hands. Tell them that the glitter represents the germs that get on your hands when you play. Have each child practice their hand washing techniques and check to see if they were able to get the glitter off.

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; shows growing independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, hand washing, brushing teeth, and toileting.

Music and Movement

Teach your children the poem After the Bath make actions to match words.

After my bath, I try, try, try

To towel myself till I’m dry, dry, dry

Hands to wipe, and fingers and toes,

And two wet legs and my shiny nose.

Just think how much less time it would take,

If I was a dog and could just shake, shake, shake!

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

Sing My Dog Rags https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjiH_pj1_Lw

I have a dog. His name is Rags.

He eats so much that his tummy sags.

His ears flip flop and his tail wigwags

And when he walks he goes zigzag.

He goes flip flop, wig wag, zigzag.

He goes flip-flop, wigwag zigzag,

I love Rags and he loves me.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.

Sing, the Opposite Song (to Pop Goes the Weasel)

Everything I always say,

You always say the opposite.

When I say bla-ack,

You say white.

(Opposites from story dirty/clean, hungry/full, boy/girl, flip-flopped/flop-flipped, mother/father, happy/sad)

Language Development/Speaking & Communicating; uses an increasingly complex and varied spoken vocabulary. AND Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

Blocks

Challenge the children to build a bridge to go over the train tracks like the one in the story.

Physical Health and Development/Fine Motor Skills; grows in hand-eye coordination in building with blocks, putting together puzzles, reproducing shapes and patterns, stringing beds, and using scissors.

Art

Put out several pictures of dogs of different breeds. Help the children to see what all the dogs have in common (4 legs, head, tail, etc.). Help the children verbalize that dogs can be very different. Encourage the children to draw their own breed of dog.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing abilities to classify, compare, and contrast objects, events, and experiences. AND Creative Arts/Art; progresses in abilities to create drawings, paintings, models, and other art creations that are more detailed, creative, or realistic.

Sand and Water

Bring in several nail brushes and fill the table with soapy water. The children can use the brushes to wash toys in the room.

Physical Health & Development/Health Status & Practices; shows growing independence in hygiene, nutrition, and personal care when eating, dressing, washing hands, brushing teeth, and toileting.

Library and Writing

Give the children a copy of the dog shape and let them color them with oil pastels. They then use a dark watercolor paint to paint over the entire dog shape. The oil pastels will bleed through. Ask the children to tell you about how their Harry got all his dirty spots, write down their responses and attach to their picture.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from books and experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

Dramatic Play

Put the variety of brushes into the center for the children to use today. Encourage the children to pretend to wash the babies, the dishes, and the house.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations. AND Approaches to Learning/Initiative & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Math and Manipulatives

Play a spot counting game. Let the children take turns rolling a dice. Have them count the spots on the dice and then take that many manipulatives (poker chips or buttons work well). Let each child have several turns rolling and counting out the number of manipulatives. If you had three spots/dots and now you add two more, how many do you have in total? When they are finished, have them count their pile. Who has more, less? That’s a lot of spots!

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate, and name “how many” concrete objects. AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Outdoor Play

Take a scrub brush out onto the playground and take turns hiding it.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; develops increasing abilities to give and take in interactions,; to take turns in games and using materials; and to interact without being overly submissive or directive.

Transitions

Ask the child to pretend to wash a body part that you name for them. If the children are good at naming general body parts, add more such as knuckles, nostril, shin, heal, and gums.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; understands an increasingly complex and varied vocabulary.

Dear Parent,

Today we talked about the importance of bathing and keeping our bodies clean. During evening routines, ask your child to show you how to wash their bodies and brush their teeth all by themselves. Praise them for a job well done.

Lola Gets a Cat, by Anna McQuinn

Lola wants a cat but she must prove to her Mother that she will learn what she needs to do to care for it.

Materials

Stuffed cat/s
Directions on how to draw a cat
Smelling Baggies. Scent a cotton ball and put it into a baggie. Make 5-10 using scents such as perfume, vinegar, onion, ketchup, lemon, peppermint, vanilla, dried herbs and spices. Make two of each.
Cat shapes. For younger children cut out many colored shapes. For older children cut out the shapes on manila folders for the children to trace and cut themselves.
A cookbook with many pictures

Vocabulary

Cat Shelter (where one goes to adopt a cat)
Settle in (to get comfortable in a new home)

Before reading the Story

Show the children the cover of the book. Ask if they can guess what the story is about today. Take a count of who has a cat at home. Read the title of the book. Explain that Lola needs to learn how to care for a cat. Allow the children to discuss their cat/s and any other pet they may have how they help care for them at home.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, nad natural processes.

Reading the Story

On the page where “Lola decides to find out more”, ask the children if they can tell where Lola is (the library). Explain that the library has books that tell people how to do things and books that tell stories. On the page where Jeremy is showing Lola three perfect cats, ask the children to guess which one Lola might pick, why?

After Reading the Story

Ask the children if they can remember which of the five senses that cats are good at (smelling and hearing). If the children cannot recall, point to your nose and ears and ask the children what they are used for. Remind the children that it took time for Makeda Cat to feel safe and comfortable in her new home. Ask the children what Lola did to make her cat feel safe and loved? (She read to her. She played with the cat. He didn’t scare it. She feeded it).

Explain to the children that cats make different sounds to tell us how they are feeling. Imitate various cat sounds and ask the children if they can guess what a cat is feeling. Meow, meow, meow (pay attention to me), Purr (happy), Faint cry or chirp (excited), Hiss (Angry, ready to fight), Yowl (Stay away or I am sick), Snarl or Growl (afraid or angry).

Language/Speaking & Communicating; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions,; and for other varied purposes.

Discovery

Remind the children that cats are very good at smelling. Put out the plastic baggies with cotton balls and see if the children can guess what they small like. Make sets, can they find the two that smell alike?

Science/Scientific Skills & Methods; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Music and Movement

Sing Naughty Pussy Cat.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og71b45JdrU

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; develops increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, or problem.

Sing I know a Little Pussy. Have the children start in a squat position and as you sing begin to slowly raise up taller and taller. When you get to the meow part have them move back down into a squat and then jump up on scat! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrLeF-0RylM

Creative Arts/Movement; shows growth in moving to different patterns of beat and rhythm in music.

Play Copy-cats. Clap out a pattern. The children copycat the pattern by clapping it back. Let the children take turns leading the pattern.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Blocks

Can the children use the blocks today to write cat. What other letters can they make using the blocks?

Literacy/Alphabet Knowledge; shows progress in associating the names of letters with their shapes and sounds. Approaches to Learning/Engagement & Curiosity; approaches tasks and activities with increased flexibility, imagination, and inventiveness.

Art

Depending upon your children’s cutting abilities, the teacher can cut out many of the cat shapes onto colored paper for the children to assemble into a cat shape. For children who are proficient at cutting, make several sets of the shapes and cut out of a manila folder or thin cardboard. The children can trace around the shapes onto pieces of colored paper and cut them out themselves to assemble their cat. Put out markers so the children can embellish their cat and add a face.

Mathematics/Geometry & Spatial Sense; progresses in ability to put together and take apart shapes. AND Physical Health & Development/Fine Motor Skills; develops growing strength, dexterity, and control needed to use tools such as scissors, paper punch, stapler, and hammer.

Sand and Water

Library and Writing

Put out the step by step directions on How to Draw a Cat along with paper and drawing utensils. Show the children how to follow the directions for Drawing a Cat. After they have drawn their cat, encourage them to write ‘cat’ on their paper.

Literacy/Early Writing; experiments with a growing variety of writing tools and materials, such as pencils, crayons, and computers. AND Social & Emotional Development/Self Concept; demonstrates growing confidence in a range of abilities and expresses pride in accomplishments.

Dramatic Play

Add stuffed cats to the center along with a shoe box with a blanket stuffed inside (for a bed), a couple of puff balls (for toys), a can of unopened tuna (for food) and any other cat paraphernalia you might have.

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Remind the children that the library has many books that tell people how to do things. Show the children a cookbook that has many pictures of the foods that are made in it. Let the children pretend to follow the recipes using the book for guidance.

Literacy/Print Awareness & Concepts; develops growing understanding of the different functions of forms of print such as signs, letters, newspapers, lists, messages, and menus.

Math and Manipulatives

Make 6 copies of 5 different cats and use these to make patterns with the children. Can the children follow your ABAB pattern? ABCABC? Can they make their own pattern for you to follow?

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurement; enhances abilities to recognize, duplicate, and extend simple patterns using a variety of materials.

Outdoor Play

Play Cat and Mice. This game is similar to catch. The teacher is the cat, The children are the mice. Set up a safe place/mouse house where the children can run to to be safe from the cat. The cat chases the children. If the cat catches a mouse, the mouse must sit down and count to 10 before they can get up and be a mouse again. Let the children take turns being the cat.

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; shows progress in understanding and following simple and multiple-step directions. AND Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increasing ability to count in sequence to 10 and beyond.

Transitions

Ask the children to think of a word, real or made-up, that rhymes with cat.

Literacy/Phonological Awareness; progresses in recognizing matching sounds and rhymes in familiar words, games, songs, stories, and poems.

Resources

Dear Zoo, by Rod Campbell

Materials

A couple paper lunch bags
A large piece of bulletin board paper 4-6 feet long.
Many lengths of yarn 2-feet in length
Beanbags
Several boxes about the size that comes from the liquor store.

Vocabulary

Fierce (ferocious)
Grumpy (grouchy and in a bad mood)
Descriptive Words (words that help explain and make something easier to imagine)

Before Reading the Story

Put a familiar classroom object inside each brown paper bag. Let the children take turns guessing what is in the bag without touching it. They may ask questions about what is in the bag but they may not touch it. If your children are not good at asking questions, you can prompt them (This is something shiny from our science center, This came from the Book Nook, but, it’s not a book). When they guess correctly have a child come up and feel the bag to confirm before taking the item out.

Approaches to Learning/Reasoning & Problem Solving; grows in recognizing and solving problems through active exploration, including trial and error, and interactions and discussions with peers and adults.

Reading the Story

Stop on each page and let the children try to guess what animal is in the container before opening and showing and showing them.

Literacy/Book Knowledge & Appreciation; demonstrates progress in abilities to retell and dictate stories from bookstand experiences; to act out stories in dramatic play; and to predict what will happen next in a story.

After Reading the Story

Ask the children if any of them have a pet at home. Allow them to share their pets’ kind and name. Steer the conversation to ‘What does a pet need’? (Food, shelter, water) Let the children talk about their own pets. As they mention their pet, ask questions to the children. “Where does your pet sleep? What does it eat? Do you have to walk it everyday”? Allow the children to share as much or as little about pets as they want.

Language Development/Speaking & Understanding; develops increasing abilities to understand and use language to communicate information, experiences, ideas, feelings, opinions, needs, questions; and for varied other purposes.

Discovery

Make a bar graph. At the bottom draw the animals that the children say are pets at home. Help each child to be able to mark their pets on the graph (I give each child a sticky note or piece of tape with their name on it that they can then put on the graph in the appropriate spot. For older children I ask them to write their name). Allow the children to continue talking about pets if they choose. Bring in books or pictures about animals for the children to explore.

Science/Scientific Knowledge; expands knowledge of and abilities to observe, describe, and discuss the natural world, materials, living things, and natural processes. AND Literacy/Early Writing; develops understanding that writing is a way of communicating for a verity of purposes.

Music and Movement

There is a cute YouTube called, We’re Going to the Zoo, Zoo, Zoo. Have the children make up movements to go with the lyrics.

Creative Arts/Music; participates with increasing interest and enjoyment in a variety of music activities, including listening, singing, finger plays, games, and performances.

Put on music and practice walking like different kinds of animals. As you change animals you can say, “Zoo keeper Juan says jump like a frog”. Call out different zookeepers to name the next animal and begin the movement.

Creative Arts/Movement; expresses through movement and dancing what is felt and heard in various musical tempos and styles.

Blocks

Put Zoo animals in the center today. Encourage the children to make cages for the like kind of animals. How many elephants are there in the cage?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; begins to associate number concepts, vocabulary, quantities, and written numerals in meaningful ways.

Art

Secure bulletin board paper to the floor with tape. Put out several trays of paint and many 2-foot lengths of yarn. Show the children how to walk beside the paper. The children dip the yarn into the paint and them drag it across the bulletin board paper. This will be a group painting.

Sand and Water

The zoo and home both have animals that live in water. Put out any aquatic animals with plastic lids or tupperware that they can try to float them in. How many animals can they get into the container before it sinks?

Science/Scientific Methods & Skills; begins to use senses and a variety of tools and simple measuring devices to gather information, investigate materials, and observe processes and relationships.

Library and Writing

Have a small group of children sit in circle with you. You will write their responses and turn it into a story or dictation. Ask the first to name an animal. Then say “The _______”. Ask the next child to name a size of animal. Then say “The ____ ____. Ask the next child to name a color. After each repeat back what has already been said. Continue adding pieces to either make sentences with the children or an older group might be able to make a whole story using lots of descriptive words.

Social & Emotional Development/Cooperation; increases abilities to sustain interactions with peers by helping, sharing, and discussion. AND Literacy/Early Writing; begins to represent stories and experiences through pictures, dictation, and in play.

Make you own Dear Zoo book by having the children draw an animal. Write their description of the animal underneath. If they give a short answer, encourage them to add descriptive words.

Literacy/Early Writing; begins to represent stories and experiences through pictures, dictation, and in play.

Dramatic Play

Add some stuffed animals to the center today and encourage the children to pretend that they are their pets. If you or a parent has empty pet food containers, toys, or special equipment for a pet, add it to the center today. (I took my class to a children’s museum that had stuffed dogs with leashes and food bowls, etc. The class loved walking the stuffed dogs and pretending to take care of them).

Creative Arts/Dramatic Play; shows growing creativity and imagination in using materials and in assuming different roles in dramatic play situations.

Math and Manipulatives

Show the children the pet cards. Ask them to help you sort them by those that would make a good pet, and those that would not make a good pet. As you sort, talk to them about any pets they may have at home.

Mathematics/Patterns & Measurements; shows increasing abilities to match, sort, put in a series, and regroup objects according to one tor two attributes such as shape or size. AND Social & Emotional Development/Knowledge of Families & Communities; develops ability to identify personal characteristics, including gender and family composition.

Outdoor Play

Take the beanbags outside today to play a throwing game. Scatter the boxes out at various distances from a throw zone (where the child will stand to throw the beanbags). Give each child the opportunity to throw 5 beanbags into the boxes. After they have taken their turn throwing, let them help count how many went into the boxes and how many did not. Which had more?

Mathematics/Number & Operations; develops increased abilities to combine, separate, and name “how many” concrete objects.

Transitions

Do animal riddles with the children. (I’m thinking of an animal that lives on a farm and gives us milk. I’m thinking of an animal that was in the story and was too scary to keep. I’m thinking of an animal that lives in the ocean and has many sharp teeth and they are scary!).

Language Development/Listening & Understanding; demonstrates increasing ability to attend to and understand conversations, stories, songs, and poems.