Counting Octopus {Clothespin Craft}

My four year old is interested in learning about all sorts of things, so I love nonfiction books that are short and simple enough to read with him.  Octopus Under The Sea is one of those books.  With only a sentence or two on each page, it keeps his attention but provides enough facts to keep him interested.

I am working on number recognition with him, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity to incorporate that into our octopus craft.  We started by painting a paper plate.

After it dried, he added google eyes and drew on a mouth.

We used number stickers to label the places where the arms should go.  (You could also just write them on, but he loves stickers and I got a huge sheet of number stickers from the dollar store.)

I hot glued some gift wrap ribbon onto eight clothespins and we also put a number sticker on each of those.

Then he matched them up. 

I think it turned out really cute and he was so proud of his octopus!