The Letter D

This week we are doing the Letter D. 

Our topic is Guide Dogs.



We found this wonderful book at the library called, 'Dinah the Dog with a Difference.'
It follows the story of a puppy called Dinah who gets selected to become a guide dog. It is perfect for Seychelle's age.


We did loads of writing and making up short sentences about Guide Dogs using Startwrite.  I type up the sentence on the program and leave the bottom half of the page blank. Seychelle writes the story, by copying the words.

We are still using the Handwriting without Tears program - here is a photo of Seychelle's D's.

Seychelle loves crafts and so we made 2 guide dog puppies out of paper - creating special guide dog jackets for them. We did the first dog together & then Seychelle cut, pasted & wrote the second one all on her own. I drew the shapes of the dog body and legs & she continued from there.

 

We found loads of really great websites about Guide Dogs that had special kids sections. We read stories online, printed out colouring in pages & searched for different images of guide dogs.

Here is a site we used that had a little story that you can read online. It is very simple & great for a 4yr old.
http://www.uniteforsight.org/kids/guidedog.php

Here is a site that had great coloring in pages.
http://www.guidedogsqld.com.au/page/Education/Guide_Dogs_Queensland__colouring_in/

Seychelle loves to role play.  Using some of her toy dogs, she dressed them up as guide dogs & started pretending to be a blind person with a guide dog. Too cute!

Seychelle then wrote about her pretend play.

We also made a tactile Letter D to stick up on the wall. We used bubblewrap (which we painted green), stuck it to a piece of paper and cut out the shape of the letter D. We also cut out the spikes, using yellow paper to stick alongside the big line of the D, to look like a Dinosaur.
(I found this craft idea at - http://www.icanteachmychild.com/2010/08/dinosaur-d.html)

We were also fortunate enough to have a DVD that had a small segment on guide dogs. Thanks Bindi!

This reinforced all that we had been studying on guide dogs & was a nice way to finish off the week.