Reading To A Dog

The other day we agreed to the responsibility of watching a family members dog for them for a little while. I thought this was great in itself because my daughter is always eager to take on responsibilities and I love teaching her to be a responsible person. One of my greatest hopes for her is that she grows up to be an accountable person and I'll do my best to make that happen. She got really excited and told me about an episode of Strawberry Shortcake's Berry Bitty Adventures she watched where she learned how to watch a dog. 

While we were watching the dog I remembered how the library had a program where kids could come read to dogs but the kids had to be ages 5 and up and my daughter was bummed that she couldn't participate, so I made sure she got her chance! We got out a book called 10 Tiny Puppies to read to the dog. I think they both enjoyed it!

This is a great activity to encourage kids to read because they will want to do something nice for their own pet or, if they're animal lovers like my daughter is, someone else's pet too. Many kids will find this to be a fun change up from how they might normally practice their emerging reading skills.