Welcome to our Dog Party {via Creekside Learning}

We're kicking off our Summer guest blogger series this week! We are excited to be sharing posts from several awesome kid's bloggers this summer. We hope you'll love their posts and head over and check out all the other great ideas they have to share on their Facebook pages and blogs. Today's guest blogger is Julie from Creekside Learning. She is sharing an activity that goes along with one of our favorite books. I hope you think this activity is as much fun as we do!

There is a book in our house that has been loved so dearly by all three of my kids, and it is fortunate that we have three copies of it: Go, Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman. We once read it at bedtime to my oldest son when he was a toddler. Now he is 8 and he reads it to his little brother. And that warms my heart.

We decided to have some fun this week, Go, Dog, Go style. One of our favorite parts of the book is the recurring character who appears with different hats and asks her friend, "Do you like my hat?" He does not like any of her hats. Until the very end, when she appears at the Dog Party in this crazy hat, which he likes very much.

So one morning, we stayed in our pj's and made our own crazy dog party hats. I took some cardboard canisters, like the kind oatmeal comes in, and cut them in half. I attached half of the canister to a large paper plate with my glue gun. I instructed the kids to cover up all the brown and white parts of the canister and paper plate. They could choose markers, paint or anything really, including a box of leftover party streamers we had laying around.

Once they covered their hats, they set about to decorate them with more streamers, stickers, pom poms, balloons and more. I glued two lengths of ribbon so the hats could tie under their chins. Ta da! Aren't they some awesome creative hats? Didn't the dog do a great job making her hat? Kidding. I made that one.

Then we had a Dog Party! Daddy read the book to them while I served them bowls of snacks and water, which they ate from like dogs. My daughter pulled out an old Halloween dog costume and wore that. By the way, when you let kids eat their snack like dogs, they are a very quiet and captive audience for story time. Just thought you should know.

After snack and reading the book, we danced to some great music like the dogs at the end of the book. Of course, we invited our actual dog to dance along with us. Which means she basically stood there barking and looking confused. But fun was had by all.

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Julie blogs about her adventures in learning alongside her kiddos, and her dog, at Creekside Learning. When not setting her kitchen on fire from science experiments gone awry, she enjoys doing lots of outdoor activities with her kids. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. She lives in the suburban Washington, D.C area.

Thanks so much Julie for sharing this great activity! I love that you involved every member of your family!

If you missed any of our recent guest blogger posts, just click the link below and catch up!

• Sky Themed Bath via Growing a Jeweled Rose