Gail Boushey, well-know literacy author and educator, has created a resource for parents, teachers, and students to encourage and support at-home learning. Throughout the videos, Gail provides instruction and models independent reading for students using three titles from MaryRuth Books:

• Porter the Therapy Dog
• All My Friends
• Danny and Norman’s Favorite Knock Knock Jokes

Comprehension and Writing

• After reading Hold Still, Danny!, download the Poem for Little Dog and complete the comprehension and writing exercise based on what is happening in the poem.
• After students have read one or all of the titles in the Danny and Grandma Ruth set, download the Grandma Ruth glasses activity sheet for a fun comprehension exercise. Ask students to draw and color what Grandma Ruth sees from her perspective (through her glasses) in scenes from the books.
• Practice reading and writing skills with Lucky the Pony worksheets that coordinate with the titles in the 4-book series.
• For a fun writing activity, print out pictures with speech bubbles from the chapter book, Moving. After reading the book, have students write dialogue for the character(s) in each of the photos that retells what happened in the story.
• Practice sequencing and writing with speech bubble photos from Danny and Dad Go on a Picnic. Have students put the photos in order to match what happens in the story and write dialogue for the character(s).
• Complete a Dots-To-Dots exercise to see what Ornithologist Danny sees in his backyard during the spring and summer.
• Download the bird-themed high-frequency words coloring exercise.
• After reading Flamingos at the Zoo, design a zoo sign that includes facts you’ve learned and pictures.
• Print a Story Strip version of Danny’s Tadpoles with a writing organizer activity.
• Get ready to celebrate Halloween with Danny and Norman: Halloween Word Hunt, Trick or Treat Word Climb, Bat-themed Rhyming Activity, and an Origami Bat.

Making Sense of the Five Senses

• Our five senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch allow us to explore and interact with the world. The body parts that we use to experience these senses are the eyes for seeing, the nose for smelling, the tongue for tasting, the ears for hearing, and the skin for touching. Let Danny help you make sense of your senses with our monthly series of classroom activities. Read Danny’s Five Senses, where Danny uses his five senses to experience Dad’s birthday cake. Then download and complete the worksheet, Introduction to Understanding the Five Senses. The tongue is used for talking and tasting. Download a hands-on activity for the reading classroom to explore the sense of taste.
• Use your five senses to experience the season of spring.

Matching, Sequencing, Maker Movement, and Using Graphic Organizers

• Making Danny’s Tadpole to Frog flip book is a fun and interactive lesson in sequencing. Students may first practice the life cycle sequence using the images. The lesson can continue with the frog life cycle writing organizer. Have students write about the frog life cycle using sequential sentence starters that encourage organization and reinforce sentence structure, grammar, and science specific vocabulary.
• Use the chapter book, Camping Out, to help students practice sequencing and writing skills by creating their own photo album of Danny and Dad’s camping trip. After putting the photos in order to match the story, have students write a caption for each picture and add their own ending.
• Practice sequencing and writing with speech bubble photos from Danny and Dad Go on a Picnic. Have students put the photos in order to match what happens in the story and write dialogue for the character(s).
• Maker Movement design challenge using Danny’s Rocket
• After reading Danny and the Monarch Butterfly, have students use a timeline wheel graphic organizer to list information in sequential order.
• Download Danny, Bee, and Grandma Ruth finger puppets to act out scenes from Grandma Ruth’s Garden or create your own story.

Word Work

• Celebrate Valentine’s Day with Norman’s Candy Hearts and this heart-themed Word Hunt Activity.
• Word Work activities using Flamingos at the Zoo.
• Read Danny and the Corn Maze and complete Norman’s Word Maze!
• Have some word fun and get in a birthday mood with Dannys-Birthday-Cupcake-Word-Ladder.
• Use your word skills to climb two summer-themed Word Ladders– Sun Set and Bike Ride.
• After reading Spy Danny, young readers can become Word Detectives, where they test their skills at finding and solving tricky words with this printable worksheet.
• Download the bird-themed high-frequency words coloring exercise.
• The Creepy Crawler Syllable Count is a fun word exercise after students read Entomologist Danny.
• After reading Danny and the Four Seasons, test your word skills with some season-themed activities: spring scavenger hunt; tracking April’s weather; May Flowers; summer sun sets, bike rides, and tree swings; autumn’s September Equinox; Danny’s Autumn Reading Adventure BINGO card; a winter scavenger hunt; how animals survive a cold winter; and the Winter Solstice.
• Get ready for Halloween with Danny and Norman: Halloween Word Hunt, Trick or Treat Word Climb, Norman’s Word Corn Maze, Bat-themed Rhyming Activity, and an Origami Bat.

• In Red Pandas at the Zoo students read how the ability to hide can keep animals safe from predators. Color the Red Panda to help it blend into its red, brown, and white surroundings.
• After reading Elephants at the Zoo, test reading comprehension with our downloadable writing exercise about elephants.
• Polar Bears at the Zoo or Penguin at the Zoo: Venn Diagram Exercise
• Continue learning about Tortoises at the Zoo by completing a Turtles and Tortoises Venn Diagram.
• Practice gross motor skills with our Over-Easy Penguin Egg Activity after reading Penguins at the Zoo.
• After reading Polar Bears at the Zoo, test what you know about polar bears.
• After reading Flamingos at the Zoo, design a zoo sign that includes facts you’ve learned and pictures.
• Practice recognizing -nk digraph words with a flamingo coloring exercise.
• Word Work activities using Flamingos at the Zoo.
• Practice recognizing -nk digraph words from Flamingos at the Zoo with a flamingo coloring exercise.
• In Danny’s Tadpoles, Danny puts tadpoles in a bowl and watches them become frogs. Studying a life cycle when reading offers a perfect opportunity to meet cross curriculum standards in the primary classroom. and combine fiction and nonfiction. Print the 24 frog life cycle cards on card stock and cut the squares out. Assemble the cards in sequential order and staple along the left edge to keep them together. To flip the book and create the animation, hold the stapled edge of the book with your left hand and hold the bottom right corner of the book with your right hand. Bend the book and let the pages slide against the thumb holding in the bottom right corner.
• Build a fun lunch to pack up and eat outdoors. Use the downloadable sheet to plan your sandwich-on-a-stick picnic. All you need is a toothpick, food pick, or skewer for each sandwich. For more fun recipes, see Danny’s Reading Recipe Cards.
• An equinox occurs when the sun is exactly over the equator. When this happens, the hours of daylight and the hours of darkness are almost equal. There are two equinoxes every year. Autumn begins with the September Equinox.
• Make stick puppets with our downloadable farm animal templates. Create a portable home for your favorite farm animal titles with our easy-to-make Farm Animal Menagerie box. Download and print the box templates. If you’d like more complete instructions, click here.
• Get kids talking and thinking about the under the water animals with DIY aquarium animal stick puppets. Print the sheet of animals on thick paper or cardstock, or glue onto a piece of thin cardboard. Color and cut out the animals. Glue or tape the backsides of the animals to popsicle sticks, straws, unsharpened pencils, or dull wooden skewers. Then, put on a show about the under-the-water animals.

• Build planning, sequencing, and time-telling skills by making an After School Clock.
• Student-created lists can help students get organized and ready to learn.
• Create a portable MRB menagerie of your favorite animal titles with our easy-to-make MRB Menagerie or Farm Animal Menagerie box. Download and print the box templates. If you’d like more complete instructions, click here.
• Keep your At-Home Learner organized with this easy project that uses cereal boxes to make a simple filing system. Download step-by-step instructions.
• Critical thinking and storytelling with emergent readers
• Working with memory cards improves concentration and classification skills in young students, while it helps develop short-term and visual memory. Make a Memory Card Game using 2 of the same set of Danny + Friends Stickers.
• Practice sequencing with a Timeline Wheel.
• Use a KWL Chart to help students be active thinkers while they read.
• Practice gross motor skills with our Over-Easy Penguin Egg Activity
• Cooking in the reading classroom is a fun way to engage students, introduce new vocabulary, and practice math and science with standards of measure.
• Students can strengthen their fingers by making and molding Gingerbread Dough.
• Practice fine motor skills by folding an Origami Bat.
• A classroom Winter Word Hunt is a fun way to practice writing skills
• Reading for Comprehension –Finding the Main Idea
• Using a Web Graphic Organizer to improve comprehension when reading informational books about animals
• Using proverbs to teach critical thinking and practice writing skills
• Organize your Danny books in a Danny Doghouse.
• Make reading part of your summer plan with Danny’s A-Z book chart.
• Using word families like Onsets and Rimes to decode words more quickly
• Make practicing math skills fun by measuring common classroom objects with marshmallows.
• Treat Norman while practicing Sight Words using a tissue box, a Norman color page print out, and word bones.
• Young readers become Word Detectives, testing their skills at finding and solving tricky words with this worksheet.
• The sounds that consonants produce are more consistent and easier to identify than the sound a vowel makes. Recognizing these sounds and being able to distinguish initial consonant sounds from the rest of a word is a good way to prepare a child for reading and writing. Using Danny’s Beginning Consonants sheet makes it fun!
• Be sure to check out our Danny Calendars. Students draw and color a shape each day to keep track of the days that they practice their reading, writing, or drawing.