Sequencing with Clifford: practice sequencing and build literacy using favorite books about Clifford The Big Red Dog

Instructor, March, 2004 by Kathleen M. Hollenbeck

Using the Reproducible

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Children will love using puppets to retell their favorite Clifford books, such as Clifford The Small Red Puppy and Clifford's Good Deeds. After reading each story, invite children to share their favorite parts of the story. Write each event on a sentence strip. Place the strips in a pocket chart in random order. Have children work together to put the events in order and retell the story using Clifford puppets. To make the puppets, copy and glue the Clifford The Big Red Dog Reproducible on page 33 to cardstock and cut out the puppets along the dotted lines. Let children color them in, and then tape to a craft stick or ruler.

Sequence Scrambled Stories

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Visually-oriented learners will love practicing sequencing with this activity. First, assign groups of four to six children one Clifford book. Then ask each group to read the book and determine the significant events that took place in it. Invite each child in the group to illustrate one event. Then have groups stand before the class, holding their pictures out of sequence. Classmates will enjoy identifying the story and rearranging the pictures to retell it. When finished, students can write a one-sentence description on the picture they illustrated. The pictures can be bound together in the correct order to create a set of your own Clifford Big Books.

Lift-the-Flap Books

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Invite children to make their own lift-the-flap books to practice sequencing skills and to see Clifford grow up! To make each book, staple together five sheets of 8 1/2" by 11" white paper. Leave the fifth page uncut. Cut one inch from the bottom of the fourth page, two inches from the third page, three inches from the second page, and four inches from the top page so that the pages are staggered, as shown. Give a booklet to each student, along with these suggested sentence strips: Clifford is a tiny puppy. Clifford is too big for his bed. Clifford grows taller than Emily Elizabeth. Clifford grows taller than a building. Have children put the strips in order and glue them to the pages of their booklet. They can then illustrate each page and write a title on the cover. Let children take turns retelling the story aloud.

Big ... Bigger ... Biggest! Clifford started out as tiny and grew to be huge! Use this idea as a springboard to reinforce sequencing and size relationships. Invite children to bring in three objects that are similar but that differ in size--for example, three lollipops, three superballs, three books, and so on. Ask each child to arrange his or her items by size and to tell the class which is big, bigger, and biggest. For an extra challenge, place all items in a row along a countertop or chalkboard ledge. As a class, organize the items from smallest to largest.

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--Adapted from Teaching With Favorite Clifford Books. To order this book or any Clifford title, call 1-800-SCHOLASTIC or visit www.scholastic.com/clifford