Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Can I Be Your Dog? will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.
With themes of perseverance and feelings, this Can I Be Your Dog? picture book by Troy Cummings is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!
Engage Your Students with Can I Be Your Dog? Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:
- Read a summary of Can I Be Your Dog?. You can find it in the section below.
- Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
- Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with Can I Be Your Dog? reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.
CAN I BE YOUR DOG? SUMMARY
The story Can I Be Your Dog? follows a homeless dog named Arfy who is looking for a family. Arfy writes letters to a family, a butcher, the fire department, the junkyard, and the scary last house on the road. Each time, Arfy gets a letter back saying that he can’t be their dog. Arfy feels discouraged each time, but continues to write letters.
After hearing that even the last house on the road wouldn’t take him, Arfy becomes devastated and goes back to the box that he lives in on the street. There he receives a letter from the mail carrier Mitzy. She wants to be his person! Arfy is overjoyed that he finally found his forever home, and goes to live with Mitzy.
CAN I BE YOUR DOG? LESSON PLAN IDEAS
Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.
When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for Can I Be Your Dog?, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.
We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.
READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS
The text-based Can I Be Your Dog? reading comprehension questions focus on:
- making inferences
- making predictions
- analyzing character
- summarize/retell
- author’s purpose
- ask and answer questions
LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS
We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:
- perseverance
- feelings
GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY
- adjectives
- interjections
- types of sentences
CAN I BE YOUR DOG? ACTIVITIES
You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:
- comprehension questions
- 30 writing prompts with themed paper
- vocabulary activities
- word study print & go activities
- ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
- social emotional learning discussion topics
- graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
YOU HAVE 2 OPTIONS! WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO PURCHASE THIS BOOK COMPANION?
BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS
What are the reading levels for Can I Be Your Dog??
- Lexile® Measure: 530L
- Guided Reading Level: N
- DRA Level: 28
- Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 2.9-3
Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?
The book was written by Troy Cummings. It was illustrated by Troy Cummings.
What genre is Can I Be Your Dog?
It is a fiction book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.
How many pages are in the book?
The story is 40 pages long.
