Dogs Colorful Day

Today, Ivan and I visited my husbands kindergarten class again and shared the book Dog's Colorful Day and did an activity with the students.  I found the idea on the AKC website- here and ordered the book from Amazon. It went great!  The only tricky part is that I need about one more hand.  It is hard to read the book, hold it so students can see it, hold Ivan and put the dots on him.  Luckily, my husband was there to help me.  I read the book to students and had them say the colors with me as they came up in the book.  I had already cut out the "dots" and put tape on them.  As I read, I stuck them on Ivan.

Then when I was done we took a picture with Ivan (with all his dots) and the class.  One of the students held the book.  I gave the students a sheet with a picture of the white dog from the book and they were instructed to color the dots on the dog.  I put the dots up on the front board so students could see all the colors.  After we were done with the activity, all the students got to come up and pet Ivan.  I used treats to keep Ivan from "kissing" students which worked really well.  I have instructed them to pet him on his back.  He was turned facing me with his back to the students and I kept him occupied with treats.  We also spent a little time showing the students his "tricks" which made me realize we need to work on roll over.  However, they loved seeing him give high 5s.

We had one unexpected visit today.  My husband texted me as I was dropping off my daughter at school and getting ready to head to his school.  He wanted to know if we could visit the special needs classroom.  I didn't have my meet/greet lesson in my bag so I kind of had to wing it (been there/done that!) and talk with students.  I also wasn't sure how my lesson would need to be adjusted for the various special needs.  One important note-this class had already sent home the permission slips to parents and had all been returned.  The visit went good.  Each student was able to pet Ivan 2x, I talked about what was ok and not ok for Ivan, I briefly explained what it meant to be a therapy dog and answered their questions.  We spent about 30 minutes with students.  We plan to visit again and we may try the Dog's Colorful Day lesson.