Woof! Woof!: The focus of this lesson is to welcome children into a new learning environment through reading and age-appropriate activities that help relieve the anxiety of beginning school in a new place and with new friends.

Teaching with Clifford’s Big Idea: Be a Good Friend
When children enter school for the first day, it can be an awakening experience for everyone! Welcome children with activities that encourage friendship, kindness, and fun interaction with new friends!

Teach: Walk-About!
Objective: The following activity nurtures essential:

• social and emotional skills
• pre-reading skills

Start the day by having a “camp meeting.” Hand each child a Clifford the Big Red Dog book. Model how to properly handle and turn pages. Give children time to share thoughts on illustrations and characters. Gather up books and focus attention on listening to a reading of Clifford’s First School Day (Clifford the Small Red Puppy) by Norman Bridwell (Scholastic). Review the events of Clifford’s first day of school. Encourage children to make connections with their own perceptions and feelings about coming to school. Ask children if school seems like a scary place, a safe place, or a place like they’ve never seen before. Take notice of what they are most curious about in the classroom and encourage discussion. Then take a “walk-about” campus tour. Locate and identify important places: library, cafeteria, playground, drink fountain, and restroom. Meet important people: principal, counselor, nurse, librarian, and custodian. Walk through daily classroom routines including school dismissal, safety rules regarding running, and after-school transportation. Have a special treat to end “walk-about” tour to celebrate each child’s arrival into a world of exciting learning and new friends.

Practice: First Assignment...Have Fun!
Objective: The following activity nurtures essential:

• cognitive thinking skills
• fine motor skills
• social and emotional skills

Relieve the stress that some children enter school with by using these fun activities to break the ice:

• Make Play Clay: 3 cups of water and flour. Add 1T. baby oil or vegetable oil, 3T. cream of tartar, 1 _ C. salt, food coloring (optional). Store in baggies. Can be refrigerated.
• Stars in a Bottle: Fill plastic soda bottles with glitter, water, food color (optional). Hot glue bottle top for children. Great to use during quiet time for relaxing.
• Buckets of Colors: Ask children to help by filling small buckets with crayons or chalk for centers and sidewalk play.
• Assign a greeter to hand out friendship bracelets as children enter room.

Extend: When we learn about ourselves, we also learn to appreciate how special others are!

• Have parents or caretakers write a short paragraph describing their child. Take turns reading these aloud. Have children guess what child is being described.
• Find examples of families in books and magazines. Cut out, organize, and glue to create a “family collage.” Next, have children bring photocopies of family pictures from home to make their own family collage. Display in a classroom gallery and discuss how each family is unique in its own way.

Clifford’s Library: These books support Clifford’s Big Ideas and reinforce valuable early literacy skills:

• Clifford’s ABC by Norman Bridwell (Scholastic)
• Clifford’s Good Friends by Norman Bridwell (Scholastic)
• Going to School (First Time) by Melinda Beth Radabaugh (Heinemann Library)