Lesson 4: A Card Trick

Discuss the fact that dogs learn about the world from their environment. The people in a dog's environment can show the dog new things that it might not have learned otherwise.

Your child can write and illustrate her chapter summary in her journal.

Review with your child that some sentences end with a period, some with a questions mark, and some with an exclamation mark. Demonstrate each punctuation mark and ask your child to write each three times. Ask your child when to use a question mark. If she does not know, explain that it comes at the end of a question. A question usually begins with who, what, why, when, where, or how.

Explain that an exclamation mark is used at the end of a sentence to show excitement, surprise, or strong feelings.

Ask your child to look through Chapter 3 in the book and to record two sentences that end with periods, two with question marks, and two with exclamation marks. Ask her to read the sentences aloud. Discuss with her how questions have certain inflections in them and that exclamatory sentences should be read with strong emotion or feeling. Give her an example of how your voice sounds when you read a question sentence and when you read a sentence with an exclamation mark.

For this activity, your child will add periods, question marks, or exclamation marks to sentences (Option 1) or create her own declarative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences (Option 2).

On the "Practicing Punctuation" (Option 1) page, your child can read the sample sentences aloud and add punctuation to the sentences provided.

On the "Practicing Punctuation" (Option 2) page, your child can read the sample sentences and then write two declarative sentences (.), two interrogative sentences (?), and two exclamatory sentences (!).