Dogs National Day Activities for Preschoolers
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The Dogs National Day is a worldwide recognized holiday celebrated on August 26th every year. It was established in 2004 by Colleen Paige, to raise awareness about adopting these great human companions, no matter the breed.
The pandemic has indeed brought more adoptions and shelters are not as full as before, but there are a lot of dogs that still need help, and there are also shelters that have deadlines and a policy of killing the animals that are not adopted during a certain period of time.
As an animal lover and defender, and having to rescue multiple dogs, it is my duty (I feel) to try to encourage people to adopt instead of buying puppies, especially since there are hundreds of puppy mills out there that don’t care for these animals and have them in horrible conditions.
Ways to Celebrate Dogs National Day
There are many things that you can do privately to celebrate Dogs National Day, but I want to give you some ideas about how to celebrate this day with your preschoolers in an easy, fun, and educational way, to start creating awareness about these great companions on your kiddos.
Some things you can do are:
1. Invite a Service Dog to School
This is an excellent way to show your students that some dogs have extremely important jobs to perform, such as helping people with disabilities to be more independent, detecting drugs and explosives, capturing criminals, and finding lost children, among others. If you don’t know anybody that has a service dog, you can always contact your local training school or the police department K-9 unit, and invite them to come to your classroom and talk to the children about their work.
2. Visit an Animal Shelter or a Pet Store
This could be a great field trip for your kiddos since they can see personally what’s going on in these places. If you are not allowed to have field trips, you can ask the parents to bring their children to one of these places and take pictures. Later on, they can come back to class, present their pictures and talk about what they saw and experienced.
3. Do a Fundraising for a Local Shelter
I did this activity last year at my school, and it was incredible! I selected a specific shelter and researched cats and dogs that were up for adoption at the moment. I printed out different pictures and each classroom “adopted” some of these animals. During the course of two weeks, children and parents started bringing donations for this shelter. I was surprised by the number of donations we got. At the end of the period, we celebrated with an ice cream party for the children, and I brought the donations to the shelter, with a giant homemade card. It was great!
4. Teach the Dog’s Body Parts
This very simple science activity doesn’t have to be complicated at all, because you only need to include the main body parts.
Present a picture of a dog, and point at its main body parts: tail, ears, eyes, legs, mouth, nose, and paws. Explain the function of each part. Then you can provide them with an activity for them to cut and paste the body parts in the right place, or use it as a matching game.
I’ve created a FREE printable that you can use for this purpose. It includes three sheets, one with a picture of a Labrador with its body parts, another one with the same photo without the name of its body parts, and the last one with the body parts only. If you want to reuse it multiple times, you only have to print the first two in white cardstock and laminate it or place them in a dry erase pocket to protect them, and just laminate the body parts.
You can grab this game by just clicking on the link below.
5. Learning the Letter Dd is for Dog
This celebration is a good opportunity to strengthen the children’s language, letter recognition, pre-writing, and fine motor skills. To do that you can:
- Teach or review the letter Dd’s sound, name, and tracing.
- Spell the word dog.
- Match each letter of the word with magnetic letters.
- Copy the letter and word with pencils, crayons, or markers.
I’ve included two FREE sheets to trace the Dd, using both uppercase and lowercase versions, and also the word dog. One of the sheets comes with shadow letters and the other one with dotted lines letters.
As usual, if you want to reuse the activity multiple times just print it out in white cardstock or place it in dry a dry-erase pocket, and invite the children to use dry erase markers to trace the letters and words. You can get it by clicking on the link below.
6. Dot-to-Dot Letter Dd Activity
Once your preschoolers recognize the letter Dd, you can provide them with this literacy activity to encourage them to identify the letter Dd among other letters. To make it fun for them, provide them with paper with multiple letters and a dot-to-dot marker. Instruct the children to use the marker to mark the spot where they find the letter Dd.
I’ve created a FREE page for you to do this activity. You just have to click on the link below to get it.
7. Dog’s ABC Maze
This is another literacy activity to encourage the children to review the alphabet by using any manipulative such as a dot-to-dot marker, buttons, bingo chips, or mini erasers to mark each letter of the alphabet in the correct order, and help the doggies get their treats. Encourage them to say the name of the letters as they go.
I’ve created two FREE sheets for the activity, one with capital letters and the other one with lowercase letters. You can get it with the rest of the printables by clicking on the link below.
8. Counting Dogs Activity
This fun and simple math activity is excellent to help your students develop different skills:
- Recognizing the numbers 1 to 10.
- Counting.
- One-to-one correspondence.
- Tracing lines (fine motor skills).
I’ve included two FREE sheets with the numbers 1 to 10. Children need to identify and name each number and trace them. Then count each line of dogs and match the amount with the correct numbers, and trace a line between the number and the correct amount of dogs.
If you want to reuse this activity multiple times, you only have to print it out in white cardstock and laminate it or place it inside a dry-erase pocket and have the children use a dry-erase marker to do it.
You can get this free resource by clicking on the link below.
9. Estimating, Counting, and Sorting Dog Treats
To make math fun and different, you can grab a box of colorful dog treats, and have the children estimate how many treats are in the box or jar, count them, and sort them by colors, shapes, or both, depending on what type of treats you get.
10. Write a Class Story About a Dog to Make a Book
During circle time invite your children to create a story, reminding them that the story has to have a beginning, middle, and end. Use a chart paper to take dictation.
You can encourage them by starting with something like “There was a dog named….” or something like that.
When the story is finished, print it out and have the students illustrate the story. Put it together as a book for the library, and make a copy for each of the authors.
Books About Dogs
You can always read and add books about dogs and other animals to your library and other centers, to give children a wide learning experience and variety to choose from. I’m sure the previous activities will spice their curiosity, and these books could be an excellent source of knowledge.
Below are some I like. You can find them at our local library, used book store, and on Amazon. Clicking on the titles will take you to the right page, through my affiliate link.
- Can I Be Your Dog? by Troy Cummings. Troy Cummings’s hilarious and touching story is a perfect gift for a child wanting a dog and for pet adoption advocates. It also showcases many different styles of letter writing, making it appealing to parents and teachers looking to teach the lost art of written communication.
- National Geographic Kids Everything Dogs: All the Canine Facts, Photos, and Fun You Can Get Your Paws On! by Becky Baines. Kids will learn all about the characteristics that define dogs, their daily lives, and the different breeds, and it is packed with fun facts, amazing photographs, and cool and interactive activities.
- Dog’s Colorful Day: A Messy Story About Colors and Counting by Emma Dodd. Dog starts the day with one black spot on his ear. But it seems that wherever he goes, he runs, rolls, and trots right into colors. As he wanders around town, Dog collects ten different colored spots.
- A Dog’s Best Friends: Shog, Lilly Frog, and Piggle in… by Lissette Star. Combining wonderfully vibrant illustrations with the power of rhythm and rhyme, this a perfect story to teach about friendship, racism, prejudice, and diversity.
- The Everything Book of Dogs and Puppies by DK. Packed with wonderful pictures and adorable dog and puppy facts, this book teaches what dogs are showing with their body language, what are they dreaming about, what they are trying to say to you, the individual features of different breeds, and how to take the best care of them.
- All About Dogs and Puppies by Laura Driscoll. Illustrated with full-color photographs, this book teaches the reader all about different breeds.
- Please Don’t Tell My Human! by Erica L Clymer. The story will have children laughing out loud yet learning about the power of kindness.
- Biscuit Visits the Doctor by Alyssa Satin Capucilli. Going to the doctor can be scary, by this story teaches young readers that a visit to the doctor is another opportunity for fun and learning!
It is important to encourage in our children the love for nature and everything it has to offer. It is really sad and breaks my heart to see beautiful creatures disappearing from this world and the risk that our children and the children of our children will never get to see animals that became and will become extinct.
It is our responsibility to teach our children that the titanic effort that some people are doing to protect nature could be multiplied if we all contribute with a little “grain of sand”. Use this week and every opportunity you have to create awareness in your children and help them become advocates for the future of all species.
Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.
Love,
P.D. Please let me know if you like any of these ideas worked for you, or if you think I need to add or replace something. My goal is to help you in any way I can and I don’t like anything better than to post something that you might find useful. Also, if you came up with different ideas and want to share them, I would love to post them as well.
