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Children Readng to Dogs - Cirra's Book Bags

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seaherons:
We have started a Children Reading to Cirra Program at an elementary school in our area.  Five classes are involved - kindergarten, two first grades, second grade and third grade.  The kindergarten class is large with twenty three children and Cirra and I visit them as a group.  As a group the kids read the "morning message", a large poster type book and sometimes sing a song.  Students from the other grades come to Cirra to read with her. 

In order to encourage reading at home we put together six Cirra Book Bags.  One for each class and two for the kindergarten.  The students take turns bringing the bags home and reading to "Cirra".  Each bag has "Cirra" - a stuffed Great Pyrenees puppy and books.  The teachers choose appropriate books.  I had someone make the Pyr puppies, used small LL Bean tote bags and put name card plates inside.  I printed out several name cards for each student with the school name, address and telephone number.  The students can write and/or draw pictures about the books they are reading.  I did print out a few pages for the children for writing or drawing:  a silhouette of Cirra,  a silhouette with lines inside and pages with Great Pyrenees rubber stamps the top - with and without lines.  The children can keep a log of the books that they read.  There are several options for using the bags to encourage reading. 

One student told his mom that he would be bringing Cirra home.  His mom was glad that her son would be bringing home the "Cirra" in the book bag. 

We have provided bookmarks for each student with "Thank You for Reading with Cirra" on the front and a sticker with Cirra's face.  The students get to chose a sticker for their bookmarks every time they read to Cirra.  The stickers for the kindergartener s are the same or very similar.  We also provided the students with Cirra's breed cards with a picture of Cirra on the front and breed characteristic s on the back.  It is my understanding the Cirra's picture is on some of the student's refrigerators and in their photo albums.

When we get a chance we are planning to make some word games about Cirra - crosswords and word searches. 

When putting together Cirra's Book Bags it did occur to me -that this might be a better project for a black dog. 

I am always interested in any suggestions from other folks participating in Children Reading to Dogs programs. 

Robyn and Cirra


 

Mastihound:
OMG What a wonderful thing you and Cirra are doing.  I would love for Morph to do something like that but there is no way.  Masons school will not allow any live animals on the school property at all.  It is their loss, esspecially when they could be doing a great program like you are.  Keep up the great work.

Carrie

ZooCrew:
What a grear program you are running!  Clever ideas too!
I've heard of dog reading programs but not to the extent you are taking it, that is just wonderful!
I'd love to get involved with something like this for at least 2 of my dogs I know they would enjoy it.  But all the programs that I've found so far are in Chicago which is a bit of a hike for me to do on a regular basis.

but keep up the good work!

Ursa:
What a great program! 

The stuffed Pyrs are adorable.

jabear:
Love the stuffed Cirra's, Love Cirra going to the various rooms, and Love the idea that she is helping so many kids to become more confident. You two ladies are awesome! I wish Bear could go to school with me and help out  more often.

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