Dog's Colorful Day: A Messy Story About Colors and Counting

by Emma Dodd

Dog always seems to be underfoot when something messy (and colorful) is spilt, giving readers ten different spots on his white coat to count before book's end and Dog's bath.

Genres: Picture Books, Storytime, Dogs, Counting, Childrens, Animals, Number

32 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 2001

About the author

Emma Dodd Author/Illustrator

Emma was brought up in Guildford, Surrey, in a family of artists and from as far back as she can remember she has wanted to be an illustrator.
Emma studied Graphic Design and Illustration at Central Saint Martin's School of Art and has worked extensively in advertising, editorial and book illustration.
She was nominated for the Booktrust Early Years Award in 2006 for her book "What Pet to Get" and in 2009 for "Miaow said the Cow"
Emma lives in Surrey with her husband and two children, who provide inspiration for her work, and their Jack Russel Terrier, Bart, who keeps her fit. She likes to spend any spare time in North Cornwall, surfing and walking in all weathers.

Reviews

[Vivian · Rating 4 out of 5]

What's not to like about Dodd's "messy story featuring colors and counting" starring Dog?
It's big.
It's bright.
It's simple.
There are plenty of prompts for involving children ...
"Splat!" (clap hands)
"Splish!" (clap hands)
"Squash!" (roll hands-- dog is ROLLING on the grass)
"Squish!" (pat legs -- boy is PATTING dog)
"Swish!" (wave hands like bee wings -- bee is dropping pollen)
"Splosh!" (clap hands)
"Splash!" (clap hands or pat legs -- ball splashes into puddle and SPLATTERS mud)
"Splurt!" (clap hands)

And look at all the "phonemic awareness" (playing with the smaller sounds in words) you get as part of the fun! Follow this link for more information: http://www.readingrockets.org/search?...

Yep, this is a very engaging book to use in a library story time with pre-schoolers.

[Jermeria Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would use this book to talk about colors. After reading the book students can color their own dog with spots and create a story of how the dog received them.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was super cute and totally worth reading. It will make a great addition to a color, counting, or dog themed storytime.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite storytime books. Lots of concepts at work here. It's very interactive and every group I've read it to has paid attention to the end.

[Kate Hastings · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books to teach colors. Easy to make a flannel dog with colored spots for children to play with.

[Kimberly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cute! Used for Family Storytime (0-5) on 3/16/17. I read the book and did the flannel story at the same time and it was a hit.

[Sandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a cute color and counting story for young readers. I liked how you followed along in dog’s day as bright spots of colors appear on his white coat of fur. I also like the language this children’s book uses. Combining colors and counting, children are learning while also reading a cute story.

Dog is white with one black spot on his left ear. During his day, he travels around and spots appear on his fur as accidents occur around him. A bee buzzes by and swish a drop of yellow pollen falls on him, a splat of red jam from his owner’s breakfast table lands on him, and dog even steps on an orange juice container and it splurts a patch of orange on him. These are just a few examples from the book but don’t you just love everything that is happening here? The use of color, the counting, and the word language. The author uses great visual language and doesn’t use the word dropped or fell but uses splurts, splat, and swish.

I really like this book, it looks like a simple book but it’s very educational.

[Holly Sandefer]

This entertaining book is about a dog who seems to find himself at the wrong place at the wrong time, becoming messy. Dog gets covered in jam, mud, grass, marker and icecream, to name a few explanations for his additional spots. This book is great for counting and identifying colors. Children can also make predictions about how Dog will acquire his next spot. The spots are eventually washed off when Dog gets a bath.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 enthusiastic stars from the 5 year old critics in my house for this charming and goofy book. Rotund Dog wanders along picking up spots of different colors - complete with wonderful sound effects - eventually to a spotless finish. Big bright bold illustrations and the charmingly drawn dog were a big hit.

[Danielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is definitely a classic or at least becoming a classic. It's great for storytime because you can do a lot of interactive things with the counting and colors. My storytime kiddos had a blast with this, especially when I pulled out a Dog's Colorful Day flannel and we put the spots on together as we went through the story.

[David Freudenburg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very fun and beautiful. Appropriate for even very young children. Bright and clear illustrations use large blocks of primary colors. Big, black, bold font makes words easy to see and follow. Simultaneously teaches colors AND numbers up to 10! How amazing! Even includes a very minor plot line.

[Laura McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Featured at a recent story time. The kids loved it and it worked very well as a flannel board story. Cute illustrations. Makes me glad that my dog is black, no one would know if he is covered in various food substances (of course, he would clean himself up....)

[Natasha Hurley-Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

As rated by my three-year-old. She really enjoys repeating the colours and numbers back throughout the book.

Adults can pass the time wondering how what software the art was drawn in. How DO they do that jiggly variable-width line art?

[Diane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colors, counting, a dog--this book has it all!

[Tracy Schillemore · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story is about a white dog with a black spot. Throughout the day dog gets all kinds of other spots from his adventures.

[Nicole Darrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Includes counting and colors. Used for dog story time.

[Mama Bibliosoph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dog is a white dog with a black spot on his ear. At breakfast time, he sits under the table and—splat!—a drop of red jam lands on his back, and now he has two spots. After breakfast he brushes past a man painting a door and—splish!—gets a blue spot on his tail, and now he has three spots. Throughout his busy day Dog gets messier and messier, accumulating colorful spots all over his body.

The book ends with a careful review of the number of spots Dog has and the color of these spots. Of course, his child-owner, Vicky, gives him a much-needed bath.

There are a lot of great things going on in this book: pleasing digitally-rendered cartoon illustrations with solid colors, sound effects, physical comedy, a pairing of color labeling and counting, and a simple day-in-the-life narrative about a family pet. Getting messy is always a fun theme, and Dog's Colorful Day is good for a giggle-fest.

As an aside, I'm sure Harry's speech therapist thought I'd lost my mind when I emailed her with the subject: OMG DOG'S COLORFUL DAY IS AN S-CLUSTER BOOK!!!, but I was so excited. I'd just met with her that day and we'd discussed how pronouncing s-clusters is something Harry struggles with. Well, every page in Dog's Colorful Day has the word spot and all the sound effects (one per page) are also s-cluster words: splat! splish! squash! squish! swish! splosh! splash! splurt! As a bonus, the book includes the words stain, street, splatters, steps, smudge, and smear.

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I review books for children from the perspective of a parent of kids with autism. The review above is part of a longer post of 15 great counting books: http://www.lineupthebooks.com/countin...

[Jolynne Dougherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Counting, Colors, Dogs - Dog is a white dog with a black spot on his left ear - at least that's how he starts our his morning. Throughout the day, he gets a bit messier and ends up with 10 spots of all different colors. This was a big hit with my preschool group this morning. I made it into a simple flannel board story and we read the book first, and retold the story with the flannel board a second time. We talked about how a story has a beginning, middle, and an ending. They retained it well and were able to remember how he got all of his spots and did a great job counting and remembering how many spots he had. I gave it 5 stars because it is a charming story and the kids were very engaged. Also, because it highlights colors, numbers and counting.

[Ashley Theadore]

This book is beneficial to children in the preoperational stage as they learn to build vocabulary, and a symbolic representation of language (McLaughlin, 2006, p. 95). This book allows children to practice colors, body parts, and numbers. This book can easily be adapted in a tactile manner with velcro where children can match colors and numbers. Additionally, the reader can discuss concepts related to events in the book. For example, a boy pats dogs and gets chocolate on his fur. It can be explained to children that chocolate is not safe for dogs to eat.

References
McLaughlin, S. (2006). Introduction to language development (2nd ed.). Clifton Park, NY: Delmar, Cengage Learning.

[Lexi · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Dog's Colorful Day: A Messy Story About Colors and Counting" is a children's book I would recommend to children in the age range of 0-2 years old. The story's main character is dog, which many children can relate to and see it as their own. The colors used in this book are vibrant which helps hold the child's attention at such a young age. Onomatopoeia's are used throughout this book which gives children a first look at how words can be used to describe and bring sound to life in a within a story. Lastly, the sentence structure is very simple and easy for very young children to understand.

[Louise Mardle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny, playful and easy to follow this book follows the loveable Dog on his messy, colourful day and is fantastic for learning colours and counting. This book is also great to use for a sensory story; recently I used this book for a sensory story session and the children loved exploring the different things in the book that gave Dog his coloured spots. We enjoyed tasting pink strawberry ice cream, rolling around in green grass, splashing in grey mud, eating brown chocolate, smelling yellow flowers and finally playing in soapy water to clean ourselves off, just like Dog!

[Flossmoor Public Library (IL) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a creative picture book that can be used as a great tool to reinforce color recognition and counting 1-10. It tells about a dog who gradually gets more and more messy throughout the book, getting different colored splotched on his white fur. Young readers will identify the colors that stain him as well as count his new spots. I used this book in a primary lesson plan and it went wonderfully!

Miss Emily

[DaddyReads2Daughter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This came in the mail for free thanks to Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library (thanks Dolly!). The book is simple enough: various things leave colorful spots on a white dog as he goes throughout his day. The book is supposed to teach children colors and how to count to ten. However, it seems like someone wanted to write a book that teaches these skills and stretches the story to fit them. These kind of books never really have the engrossing stories that kids love.

[Nadina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fabulous book. It could be used for storytime's around counting or colors. I had originally planned to use this twice in my storytime sessions, but did not end up reading it the first storytime I was planning to as the toddlers were a little too wriggly to sit for a second story. Perhaps a little high text for the toddler group I had, but would work great in a more one-on-one story situation.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my favorite book as a kid growing up. It is about a dog who keeps getting stuff spilled on him! It helps teach kids about different colors. I think this is a great and fun way to open up the idea of learning all the different colors. I would use this book as a read-aloud in class then have the students do a fun activity practicing using all the different colors and putting them on their own dog.

[B.G. Clyde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dog has a wonderful day as he splishes, splashes and sploshes through his activities picking up spots of color along the way. He starts out with one black spot on his ear and by the end of the day has nine more colorful spots on his coat. A quick bath has him ready to start all over again tomorrow. Cute combination of colors, counting and vocabulary.

[Ham · Rating 1 out of 5]

Subpar illustrations. The premise was cute, but it was totally undermined by the sloppy printing. In a picture book about colors don’t you think it might be important to get the colors right? I certainly don’t want my child to think orange is called red. This is the epitome of the make-a-quick-buck-off-parents-with-shoddy-books mentality that currently prevails in modern publishing.

[Lacy | literary_lacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

My daughter loves this book. We have read it so many times since getting it.

The pictures are colorful, and the sentences are short which are good for her attention span right now.

Not only is this book entertaining, but it is also, educational. This book helps to teach kids their colors, and counting.

I recommend this book for younger children.

[Olivia S · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad. Involves colors and counting, but it kind of seems like someone just wanted to make a book to feature those skills, and made up a story that would kind of work with it. I still kinda like it. Dog gets all different colorful spots on him during his day of exploring. 2+

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great story (which would make a great flannel board story!) about counting, colors, and Dog himself. Lots of opportunities to add in hand motions and sound effects (clap or pat on the splish and splosh, roll hands when Dog rolls in the grass, etc.). Perfect for toddler and preschool story time!