If you Give a Dog a Donut-Resources & Curriculum Ideas

Everyone loves the Laura Numeroff classic, ‘If you Give a Mouse a Cookie’, but did you know this book has spun off into a series of stories? Preschoolers will love ‘If you Give a Dog a Donut’ and I’ve got some fun new curriculum ideas to pair with the book. Keep reading to see all of the possibilities.

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If you Give a Dog a Donut

In order to teach this lesson, you’ll first and foremost need the book! Here’s my Amazon affiliate link: (remember, using one of my links makes me a little $$ but costs you nothing extra!) If You Give a Dog a Donut.

The Laura Numeroff books are excellent because they are predictable for preschoolers and early elementary students. The loveable characters doing activities that kids often do make it fun for them to follow along. There are so many ways to stretch these stories into school lessons. I’ve broken down some of the activities by subject and linked the resources in the following text as well.

Math

Sequencing in ‘If you Give a Dog a Donut’

This book lends itself perfectly to sequencing practice for young readers. I’ll link some resources in the ‘Language’ section, but you can also use this read-aloud to practice ordinal numbers. First, Dog ate a donut, Second he had some juice, etc.

How Many Donuts?

Have kids make their own cardstock donuts, or use this printable.

FREE Donut clipart from The Chaos Manager, click the link below!

Donut-Clipart

Laminate for durability and then place your breakfast order with your students! Ask a child for a certain number of donuts and let them use a real spatula to “serve” them. For added fun ask the donut shop for an empty box next time you go and kids can use it to fill the order. This is a great opportunity to learn some donut vocabulary too, like dozen, half dozen and Baker’s Dozen. The paper donuts can also be used to make number sentences. If you have six donuts and eat two, how many are left? If you add magnets to the paper donuts this would be a fun white board activity too!

Easy magnets for this activity-

If you’re looking for a math printable, check out my Teachers Pay Teachers store for a fun donut and sprinkle counting worksheet!

Shapes

Every book is a great way to help young students identify shapes in everyday objects.

• Go for a shape hunt while you’re reading
• Count all of the donut “circles” you can find
• Introduce 3 Dimensional shapes like cylinders by pointing out the cup Dog drinks from
• Use this fun worksheet to practice even more!

Art

The obvious choice for an art project with ‘If you Give a Dog a Donut’ is to make your own donut…sans deep fryer but with all the mess and fun! Use my donut template (currently FREE on my TPT store!) to have students get creative. This would be the perfect ‘family homework’ assignment for kindergartners, it would be so fun to see how creative the families can get and who has the most unique donut! This template is also perfect for learning the letter O or the number 0.

Before I made the template, my little one and I just used some cardstock and made our own. For the picture above, I let him use a paint brush to paint some watered down glue onto the paper. In a large foil pan (like a disposable one for a party) we shook the sprinkles all over his paper. He thought this was so much fun! You can also make this into a group project by cutting extra large donuts out of cardboard boxes and having small groups paint or decorate them. Sprinkles can be items cut out from magazines that are a certain shape or start with a certain letter!

Make a kite!

In the book Dog makes a kite and you should too! If you’re a little rusty on kite making skills, Pinterest has plenty of ideas for you. I’ve added some Pins to multiple boards (follow me on Pinterest!) and included one with step by step instructions here. If its the dead of winter or you have younger students, you can always decorate a kite shaped template instead.

Motor Skills

• Use the donut clipart above and print large. Laminate and use for a Cake Walk type game
• The math game above is great to practice fine motor skills by serving the donuts with a spatula
• If you have the space play a game of catch or baseball
• Go fly a kite!

Kites on Amazon

Language and Writing

D is for Donut

D is for Donut…and Dog! ‘If you Give a Dog a Donut’ is the perfect book to read when teaching the letter D. Of course I have a practice sheet (pictured above) in my store too. If you’d rather teach the letter O with this book I have a donut themed practice page for that as well.

Sequencing

As I mentioned in the math section above, this book is excellent for teaching story sequencing. After you’ve read the book aloud once, here are some activity ideas for story sequencing and learning to retell the story:

• Use these printable clipart pieces on a magnet or felt board to retell the story.
• Have one student be the “If” and the other the “Then” have the partners find each other. Be sure to print multiples of the proper clipart as needed for the story. Example: “IF you give a dog a donut, THEN he’ll ask for some apple juice” the student with the donut should find the student with the apple juice.
• Callbacks- tell the students half of the If/Then statement and have them callback the other half. Example: TEACHER: If you give a dog a donut STUDENTS: He’ll ask for some apple juice

More sequencing practice from The Chaos Manager

Writing

Use ‘If you Give a Dog a Donut’ to inspire some fun and creative writing! Prompt Ideas:

-If you give a dog a donut, then…. (have the kids make up a new idea that is not in the book)

-If you give a student a ________ then, _________.

Check out this printable with space for writing and illustrations to make this an easy, NO PREP activity!

Science

This book offers itself to some scientific concepts like If/Then statements and predictions. Have your class write some hypothesis about:

-What happens if we put sprinkles into different liquids?
-What would happen if you gave a dog a donut? Ask a veterinarian and learn about healthy food for pets.

Crossover activity ideas for ‘If you Give a Dog a Donut’

This book is such a fun read-aloud for so many subjects! Here’s a list of lesson themes that it is perfect for:

• Donuts
• Kites
• Baseball
• Apples
• Dogs
• The letters D/O

If you loved the printables and templates, be sure to look at my ‘If You Give a Dog a Donut’ bundle to save!

Looking for more from Laura Numeroff? Check out her other titles:

• If you Give a Mouse a Cookie
• If you Give a Pig a Pancake
• If you Give a Moose a Muffin
• If you Give a Cat a Cupcake

Lesson Plans from The Chaos Manager

Corduroy
The Gingerbread Man
10 Apples Up on Top
Homeschooling with Disney
Blood & Circulation

The Chaos Manager’s Teachers Pay Teacher Store