Clifford performs many good deeds in the story, yet they always seem to backfire. Have students write a few sentences about a good deed they performed for a friend. Title the short story, "My Good Deed." If the deed did not turn out as planned, ask the students to explain this in their description. Provide them with art supplies to illustrate the event, and then have the students present their work to a friend in the class.
Use the story to teach students about home fire safety. Invite a firefighter to visit your classroom and read the story to the class. After reading the story, help him lead a discussion on ways to prepare fire safety plans at home and come up with ways the kids in the book could have been better prepared. Talk about what might happen if a fire occurred in the students' homes and have students develop their own fire safety plan.
Clifford is known as "The Big Red Dog." Read "Clifford's Good Deeds" with your class and discuss the use of the color red throughout the story. Not only is Clifford red, but the fire he saves the children from is also red. As a group, go back through the story and make a list of all red items in the book. Then, ask students to search your classroom and create a new list of every red item in your room.
Introduce your math lesson on counting by reading "Clifford's Good Deeds" with your class. After reading, divide students in groups and provide them with a copy of the story. Ask them to flip through the story and then count the number of good deeds Clifford performed throughout the entire book. Depending on the academic levels of your students, ask them to record each good deed and include the total number of deeds they counted. Bring students together and discuss the total number of good deeds each group found in the story.