This is the fourth week of our summer storytime ideas series. Each week we gather in our local park to read great books for kids together with our neighbors. This week we featured The Great Gracie Chase by Cynthia Rylant with some clever book activities.
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Storytime Ideas: The Great Gracie Chase
The Book
The Great Gracie Chase by Cynthia Rylant is a fun tale that takes you all over town. Gracie the dog likes a quiet house, but when the painters come to the house it is anything but quiet. Gracie gets out of the house and discovers that someone left the gate open so she heads out for a stroll. Well, as town members start to discover that Gracie is loose, they all start chasing her. Gracie keeps going and going. Eventually everyone gets tired of the chase and gives up following Gracie. This is when Gracie decides to head home all by herself where she discovers a peaceful house again.
The Group Activities
Puppy Song
We sang this cute song about puppies to the tune of “Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”. The kids enjoyed acting out the song.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, turn around.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, sit on the ground.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, sit and beg.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, stand on one leg.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, bark and wail.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, chase your tail.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, into your bed creep.
Puppy dog, puppy dog, go to sleep.
Skill building: fluency
Who Let the Letters Out Song
Next, each child was given a letter to hold. They each took turns coming through the doghouse we made out of a cardboard box as we sang Dr. Jean’s “Who Let the Letters Out Song”. The song is on her Kiss Your Brain cd.
Skill building: letter identification, letter sounds, fluency
Follow-Up Activities
Pretend Play Dog Park
Pretend play is a wonderful opportunity to build language skills. This dog park pretend play idea from The Measured Mom is so much fun. I can’t wait to set this up for my boys.
Baking for the Dogs
Let the kids make homemade doggie treats for the dog. We don’t have a dog so we made this carrot and oat recipe from Food + Words and then put them in bags and delivered them to the neighbors’ dogs. It was a great activity to teach my boys to take care of animals and to do something nice for others.
Hot Doggy Dinner
This is a super cute hot dog dinner idea called Dog in a Dog from Rhodes Bread.
More Dog Themed Books
Here are some more books about dogs that you may enjoy exploring.
For more storytime ideas to go along with the book, The Great Gracie Chase and other great books, follow our Storytime Ideas Pinterest board.
Follow Jodie Rodriguez @ Growing Book by Book’s board Storytime Ideas on Pinterest.
A big thank you to Scholastic for donating copies of The Great Gracie Chase and to Camp Bow Wow for donating books. Their support was greatly appreciated.
Join us again next week when we feature the book, Drum City by Thea Guidone.
Rachel says
I used this story and the “Who Let The letters Out?” Sing by Dr. Jean when I was our preschool’s substitute storyteller today. It was a great activity. Didn’t have time to make a dog house, but it worked out fine to have the children hold the letters at their spots on the carpet. I also took a stuffed “Gracie” that even our school age summer campers enjoyed giving a pet and a hug. Thanks for being my go-to literacy specialist, Jodie!
Jodie Rodriguez says
A “stuffed” Gracie is a great idea! Thanks so much Rachel for your kind words. 🙂
Jill says
What a fun storybook themed activity! Running through the doghouse like little puppies sounds like so much fun for the little ones. You always come up with such fantastic storybook activities Jodie 🙂
Sheila says
Cynthia Rylant is a favorite in our household. We read so many of her books! What a fun play dog house. I bet the kids loved it!
Patricia says
This is so cue and so fun. time to do this with the niece and nephews.
Emma @ P is for Preschooler says
I love the life-sized dog house! This must have been great fun for the kids!
Jodie Rodriguez says
It was pretty popular Emma! It’s amazing the number of things you can do with a cardboard box!
Kat Reader says
How fun! I love your fun ideas for bringing this book to life 🙂
Jodie Rodriguez says
Thank you!