Cheeky Dogs for Early Years
Bring a book to life using the arts! This resource is based on Children's Book Council of Australia Award-winning book Too Many Cheeky Dogs. The resource features activity guides full of ideas for things to do "before, during and after" reading or viewing the story.
The book was created in a collaboration between illustrator Dion Beasley and author Johanna Bell, and it is set in the remote Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek. The story introduces children to some of the places and characters that live in Dion's world. It is written in a simple repeating style that supports children's language development. The cheeky dogs are the central characters whose numbers increase on each day of the week.
The animated video of the Cheeky Dogs text can be shared with children instead of or in combination with the original book. This video features an Auslan interpreter to support and educate all children, and creates a connection to indigenous illustrator Dion Beasley who is deaf and experiences muscular dystrophy. This story can be used as a starting point to explore and deepen children's understandings about Indigenous Australia.
To share content with students or families use these links:
Video -Too Many Cheeky Dogs - Auslan Reading
Resource Guide
The Resource Guide below includes ideas and background information to support Early Years educators to deliver immersive literacy experiences.
Why?
This immersive approach to literacy aims to engage children cognitively and emotionally and to spark and foster a life-long love or reading. Children need to see, feel, play and discuss concepts to build new ideas and consolidate new language. The creative strategies used in this resource can support all learners to share and extend their existing knowledge.
Introduce activities related to the Cheeky Dogs narrative before sharing the text. These shared experiences will support children's engagement, language development and comprehension of the text.
The same story can be shared numerous times and be brought to life in a multitude of ways; this will help consolidate the language and connected concepts. Here are some ideas for immersing children into the story.
The rich experience of the text should spark further play and language development. What are children's understandings of this world? Retell and discuss the concepts from the story.
The creation of Too Many Cheeky Dogs is a remarkable story involving Dion Beasley, a young, Indigenous artist who is profoundly deaf and has muscular dystrophy, and first-time author Johanna Bell. More than two years in the making, the book project succeeded despite distance, disability and cross-cultural difference, inspiring many along the way. The book is a testament to how much people can achieve when they put their minds to it and they're supported along the way.
It doesn't matter if you live in downtown Melbourne or three hours drive east of Alice Springs everyone knows at least one cheeky dog! Written initially to support Indigenous literacy, the mischievous canine characters in Too Many Cheeky Dogs will win hearts all over the country.
About the author and illustrator
Johanna Bell, the author, is from the Northern Territory. She lives with her partner, daughter and a backyard full of green tree frogs. Johanna also runs a specialist agency called Story Projects (storyprojects.com.au) which supports organisations and businesses to get better outcomes by building storytelling into project design, delivery, evaluation and reporting.
Johanna enjoys working cross-culturally and has worked extensively with culturally diverse and Indigenous communities. She is also passionate about supporting community organisations to design, deliver and evaluate their programs so as to maximise impact.
Johanna's first book, Too Many Cheeky Dogs is a collaboration with Indigenous artist Dion Beasley, was developed as a tool to support remote Indigenous literacy.
Dion Beasley lives in Tennant Creek and is well known across the Territory as the artist behind the much-loved T-shirt brand Cheeky Dogs. Dion's professional art career started in 2006 when the first Cheeky Dogs T-shirt line was launched. Since then, his reputation as an accomplished visual artist has grown from strength to strength. He has exhibited at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Gallery of Australia and numerous galleries in Darwin. Dion's talents are particularly remarkable given he has muscular dystrophy and is profoundly deaf.
Too Many Cheeky Dogs is Dion's first picture book and he and his carer, Joie Boulter are looking forward to working on more illustration projects in the future.
Early Years Learning Framework links
The activities in this resource are designed to support the development of the following outcomes.
Learning Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
2.2 Children respond to diversity with respect.
Learning Outcome 4: Children have a strong sense of identity
4.3 Children transfer and adapt what they have learned from one context to another.
This resource has been produced by The Song Room with the support of the Ian Potter Foundation.
Thanks to Johanna Bell, Dion Beasley and Joie Boulter.
Thanks to Allen & Unwin publishing.