A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray

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Home : 2008 : January : 27

A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray
By ConnieWI

A great read aloud for this unit if you are looking for something other than Shiloh might be A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray by Ann Martin.

I use it as a read aloud, but it would be perfect for fifth graders
as part of a literature circle too. It has a lot of "meat" which is what I always look for in a literature circle book.

An activity to include in this unit might be speakers who work with dogs (fireman, policeman, Humane Society, someone who trains hunting dogs, blind or disabled person). Most kids don't realize that dogs are not only "pets" but also can be trained to "work." I

bet if you check the internet, you could find newspaper/magazine articles about how dogs help search for people who are lost in earthquakes, hurricanes, and 9/11 victims. Two writing activities for this activity would be thank you notes to the speaker, or a class newspaper article telling about information learned from the speakers. You could call the newspaper "Bare Bones" or some such catchy title.

Either Sunday (today) or Monday (tomorrow), there is a kennel club show on TV. Tape it. Show it to your students so they can see the variety of dog breeds and how dogs are judged at these competitions. This would be a wonderful way to introduce this unit.

Another thing you might want to do is have your school librarian collect picture books that you think the age-group you teach might enjoy. You could place these in a basket in your room, your students could practice reading them, and then eventually, they could read one to a child in another grade. Your students could also write book reviews about these picture books.

Have you thought of having a DDA (Dog-Day Afternoon) of reading books about dogs? You could serve "Puppy Chow" and water. (My students love Puppy Chow...made with Chex, chocolate, powdered sugar...I don't know the recipe, but I am sure you could have your room mother throw some together. The recipe might be on the Chex box, it might be on the Food Network website, or maybe someone else who posts about this will have the recipe.)

If you want your students to share the books they are reading, have them get together every few days in small groups of three or four. The group would include at least one person reading each book. However, you might find that by putting a few copies of the other titles in your classroom library, students not reading that book might choose it as an independent read.

Also, be sure to use non-fiction books from your school or community library. My school library has a set of about twenty books about different breeds of dogs. Your students could use these nonfiction books to make Venn diagrams or write compare/contrast paragraphs about two different breeds.