Clifford

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Home : 2001 : August : 5

Clifford
By Janet

We were fortunate one year that a family had just adopted a puppy. Through the year the dog visited and we weighed and measured him. We even figured out why we have canine teeth. We graphed his growth (and he grew quickly!)
and made a timeline about him. The kids (and their parents) had inspiration when making their own timeline ,birth to present, with photos and comments.
After we read a few Clifford books we wanted to figure out how big Clifford really was. We looked at the books and tried to pick someone in the class that would be the same size as Emily Elizabeth; shes 5 or 6 so it works for K

and first. Then we look at the pictures and find something in the pictures to compare Emily and Clifford's size. We end up finding that she is a little shorter than his collar....so, we make a collar by stapling black paper together until our class "Emily" can comfortably stand inside it and we all agree it will fit around Clifford's neck. The children are always surprised with the size of the collar. We then use it for different activities: #how many kids will it fit around
#how long is it
#how far off the ground would it be on Clifford
#we draw Clifford on the hardtop full-sized(so the collar will lay on it).
We built a doghouse from a refridgerator box to read in. Another day each child traces a template and cuts out a Clifford and makes their own collar to decorate for him (great OT activity).
These activities take 15 to 30 minutes a day usually over a two week period. Have fun.