If You Give a Dog a Donut Activities and Fun

The letter Dd is a great time to use the book If You Give a Dog a Donut. I know you will love all of these If You Give a Dog a Donut Activities and Fun ideas for the week. Tying learning into literacy and math skills is a great, solid teaching tip to cover multiple standards in an inventive and engaging way.

Charting and Write the Room

I love to use this chart (shown in the back) on my smart board to complete an interactive phonics chart with my students. My mentor teacher told me 15 plus years ago how charting was a great way to re mediate and accelerate learning for the classroom. I have found her wise words to be completely true then and now. There is also a student copy they can use to chart along with you to write down many Dd words.

If you like to chart whole group this is ideal, but what about using the same paper for more than one activity? If you like Write the Room, I have an activity for you as well. There are three differentiated versions of write the room cards you can use. One version contains only the words, another contains the picture and word, and the third contains just the picture.

Sequencing for Success

Because our unit tie in is to the book If You Give a Dog a Donut, Amazon Affiliate link to the book in case you need it, everything we do revolves around this book. We read the book several times and have a listening station for this book. Sequence the story in a pocket chart using these sequencing cards in a natural learning step next. 

Once we sequence the parts of the story together, I have my students complete a small group sequencing activity. I created two sequencing activities to choose from.

This sequencing sheet is a circle map to show how the story would continue to cycle through IF you give a dog a donut. This activity holds 8 out of the 10 parts of the story, making it slightly easier to complete. 

Additionally, There is a second sequencing option which uses ordinal numbers. This option holds 10 sequencing options.

Integrated Writing

We also LOVE LOVE LOVE writing about what we read. To incorporate writing to reflect what we have read a way to express learning. Here is a word wall with three differentiated writing prompts. One option is ideal for emergent writers and has the student just writing in what the dog got. Another option is slightly more challenging and has the student complete the sentence. The last option is more a more experienced writer and is open ended.

Reading Comprehension Activity

No week is complete without a reading comprehension game. My students have no clue I am really assessing the to see who understands, recalls, and can tell me what they remember about the book. They just know they are having fun and playing a game about the story they have enjoyed over the past few days. This game is a great game for a parent volunteer to play with students because it even comes with an answer key!

Sounding Out Words Game

One of my all time FAVORITE activities is this donut game.

Students take their vowel card (it contains “plates” with the vowels showing in red) and a donut. Next, they place their donut on the plate and practice sounding out the word it creates.

You can see how this word becomes “tan.”

But when you move it to the next vowel place it becomes “tin.”

Finally, you can see how it now becomes “ten.”

Not every pairing of donuts and plates will create a real word. This is a teachable moment. I have included an optional recording sheet where you or students (or both) can record the real words and silly words.

Integrating Cooking

We love to cook in Kindergarten. It is simply one of those events that takes effort BUT I strongly feel is needed for these little ones. Since I do not have a sink or other necessities for cooking, we get creative!

We use this donut maker and follow the recipe inside to mix the ingredients whole class or small group. (I included an Amazon Affiliate link to a great cost friendly donut maker that makes 7 small donuts at a time, verses 4 larger ones at a time.) What a great way to show the art of listening to and following directions, reading, and integrating math skills in one!

Here are the donuts cooking.

And our final product.

I took into consideration all food allergies and alerted my parents to this activity in advanced.
The donuts have a few minutes to cook, so I like to have short activities to hold us over while they are cooking.
And honestly, more of my parents are excited that I am willing to cook with my class!

More Activities

One activity is this donut puzzle.

(Notice the 4 and 5 out of order on the top? That is on purpose so you can see how when the puzzle is together it creates a picture and if it is not correct, it is easy to spot an error.)

Another FUN activity is this initial sound file folder sorting activity.

Don’t forget the ART

Lastly, we create art work with this book. Here is our dog.

We create a display using the art and writing prompts for outside the door.

CLICK HERE to grab the If You Give a Dog a Donut Activity Pack
CLICK HERE to check out the Laura Numeroff Bundle Pack

Keep in mind that Scholastic Book Clubs usually has this book in paperback for a GREAT price
and you can grab the listening station for it as well!