I'm a huge fan of Seth Casteel's Underwater Dogs photographs, and when I saw that he had come out with a series of children's books I knew we had to check them out. We picked up Underwater Doggies 1, 2, 3 and were not disappointed! My boys loved the book so much that we came up with a fun activity to go along with it.
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In the book, underwater photos of dogs swimming are accompanied by fun rhymes to help toddlers and preschoolers learn to count to 10. We decided to get out some of our toy dogs, get a little wet, and practice some counting too!
For this activity, you will need:
- Underwater Doggies 1, 2, 3 by Seth Casteel
- Clear plastic tub
- Plastic toy dog figures
- Small plastic balls
- Foam numbers 0-9
The set up is very simple. To start, fill your plastic tub with water. I made mine about 1/4 full because my boys like to splash! I highly recommend doing this outside but if you're indoors (we were because it was 20 degrees outside today!) be sure to put down towels or a blanket to protect your floors.
Then begin reading the book with your children. We added in each number as we read them in the book.
Then we added the toy dogs and balls to correspond with each photo. Once everything was in the tub, we just played!
The boys loved looking through the sides of the tub to see their doggies "swimming" and even got one to float on a raft made from numbers!
We love this book and this activity made it even more fun. It was so easy to set up and used things we already had around the house - a perfect diversion on a cold winter afternoon, and a wonderful way to practice numbers and counting.
Want more dog themed fun? Check out all our pet activities here!
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