My little girls love cats and dogs (especially dogs). Maggie sleeps with no less than 3 stuffed dogs in her bed every night. I planned this home preschool week to let them have a little fun while exploring a topic that they both love. I hope your kids enjoy some of these activities, too!
If you regularly do preschool using weekly themes, be sure to check out Over 30 COMPLETE Weekly Preschool Theme Units that we've completed as well as my entire list of 52 Weekly Preschool Themes. You may also want to check out of Daily Home Preschool Schedule and this handy FREE Printable Preschool Planning Page.
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Hungry Puppy Puppet
Children love puppets, and you can use them to your advantage to help your children complete a difficult task or to help with their learning. Maggie is impatient to sit and learn her letters (she's only 2, after all!), and so I don't push it, but I do look for ways to make it more fun for her.
During our cats and dogs week, I pulled out one of her beloved friends, Cinnamon, the dog puppet. Cinnamon was hungry, but only for certain letters of the alphabet. Maggie found the right letter on one of her ABC puzzles and fed it to Cinnamon, who gobbled it up with plenty of ridiculous sound effects. Lena wanted in on the action, too, but single letters wouldn't have challenged her. So from Lena, Cinnamon was hungry for certain blends and that she's working on (sh, th, wh, etc.)
This little game was a great way to sneak some phonics in to our day! The best part was that after we played through the whole alphabet, Lena and Maggie put all the letters back where they belonged, and then Lena put on the Cinnamon puppet and went through the whole alphabet again with Maggie while I folded laundry. I loved seeing them play and learn together!
Snack Time!
Kix cereal looks an awful lot like dog kibble, don't ya' think? I bought some this week and gave it to the girls and told them it was kibble. They just giggled and giggled! I wasn't cool enough to let them eat it straight out of a bowl (like a pup) but you could consider it!
Picture Books
Our favorite book of the week was Otis and the Puppy by Loren Long. Otis the tractor has so many admirable qualities, and this story is all about friendship and helping others. I tear up when I read it! So sweet!
The rest of this book list about dogs was so easy to put together because there are so many wonderful books about dogs! You'll definitely see some of your favorites on this list.
And for those of you who prefer cats, here is our selection of Books About Cats!
Pete the Cat Cookies
We loved getting to know the Pete the Cat series this week. I had seen them at the library and book store, but had never actually read any of the books before this week. Pete sure is one groovy cat! We made these groovy button cookies to go along with Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.
Field Trip to a Pet Store
We don't own a dog or cat, and happened to not be visiting any of our friends who do this week. Instead we took a little trip to a pet store and looked at the little critters. I made sure to be very clear before we went that we were looking only, so that the girls wouldn't get upset about not being able to bring one home. With that clear expectation, they were able to just enjoy watching for a while.
Printables
We did some fun dog themed printables this week from Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations. We always love what she makes!
And, so the kitty cats wouldn't feel left out, we did some of these cat themed printables from Carisa at 1+1+1=1. Her resources are also always top notch!
DIY Paper Kitty Cat Ears
Eeee! How cute are these?! Lena loved making these little kitty ears with me one afternoon while Maggie was napping. She declared herself Queen Kitty. Read how to make your own in this post!
Oatmeal Kitty
I never thought I'd be the kind of mom to make food art for my kids! But...never say never, right? The girls had these cute little oatmeal kitty cats for breakfast one morning. The base is oatmeal, and the other parts are raisins, banana and watermelon. I cut all the pieces while the oatmeal cooked, so it really didn't take that much extra time.
Ginger Pye
I haven't been including our chapter books (even though we read lots of them!) in my weekly theme posts, because what we're reading doesn't typically correspond to the theme week we're having. When it does, though, it's great!
For a couple of weeks we've been reading Ginger Pye by Elenor Estes. Ginger is the Pye family's pet dog, and he goes missing on Thanksgiving Day. This is probably the most advanced chapter book (in terms of complex language and vocabulary) that we've read, and there are times when Lena gets a little bit lost. I wouldn't recommend it as a beginning read aloud chapter book, but if you have older preschoolers who are good listeners who have some experience listening to chapter books then you might want to give it a go. I personally love the old fashioned language and turns of phrase, and found myself grinning as I read. It is also long, at 300 pages, but it goes fairly quickly.
Scholastic Storybook Treasures
I've mentioned these fantastic DVDs before, and there is one that is perfect for a Dogs and Cats theme week. The Scholastic Storybook Treasures are simple animated versions of classic children's books. Each DVD has 5-7 stories related to a particular theme. They're nothing flashy, and some of them don't even have animation, just images of the same pictures that you would see in the book. I LOVE them; they're certainly not as good as actually sitting down and reading the books with your child, but they a great 'screen time' choice for when you just need your kids to sit still while you make dinner or make an important phone call. This week the girls watched Harry the Dirty Dog...and More Playful Puppy Stories.
Need even more ideas for a cats and dogs week? Follow Cutting Tiny Bites on Pinterest or check out the dogs and cats theme board below.
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