When I heard that August's author of the month was Donald Crews, I thought we would do an activity for Freight Train, which my son loves. But when we went to the library we found Ten Black Dots and my daughter fell in love with it. The rhyming story turns ten black dots into different things like balloons stuck in a tree or the portholes of a boat. It's great counting and number recognition practice. To extend the number practice, we did a simple activity involving paint chips.
I collected brightly colored paint chips and numbered them from 1 to 10. I made a set for each of my kids.
I shuffled the cards and we worked on putting them in order. My five year old also wanted to put them in reverse order.
They used a paper punch to make holes that corresponded to the number on each card.
They also traced the numbers and practiced writing them.
I think the brightly colored paint chips made all the difference in their attitude about this activity. In fact, it was their idea to trace and practice writing the numbers because they liked the little cards so much.
*This activity was inspired by an idea I saw at Totally Tots. They also have lots of other great ideas like these name puzzles.
Have you done any activities or crafts for Donald Crews books? Please link them up or share it on the Virtual Book Club for Kids facebook page!
<div align="center"><a href="http://www.readingconfetti.com/p/virtual-book-club.html" title="Reading Confetti"><img src="http://i1097.photobucket.com/albums/g350/loriekaeh/vbc-1.jpg" alt="Reading Confetti" style="border:none;" /></a></div>
This is such a great idea! We have to pick up a paint chip any time we pass them in the store because my son loves them so much.
ReplyDeleteI know! I don't know what it is about them, but I like them too. :)
DeleteWhat a fun fine motor activity!
ReplyDeleteThis is such a great activity I love how it combines so many different things (got to fine me one of those punches and also some paint chips that size!).
ReplyDeleteThanks for linking up to Tuesday Tots this week and letting you know that I'm featuring this over on Rainy Day Mum this week
We are doing this next week! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteSo glad you can use it, Carolyn!
DeleteI love the combination of fine motor practice, counting, and bright colors. Thanks for sharing at Discover & Explore. I'm featuring this post today.
ReplyDeleteLove this activity and how it covers so many areas of early learning. I'll be featuring this on The Sunday Showcase this weekend. Thanks for linking up!
ReplyDeleteWe joined a kids book club when our son was just 6 months old, and have read at least 30 minutes for him every single day, and clearly observe how far ahead of others he is now, so I highly recommend getting started as soon as possible. Other parents have found A New Book Every Month a great place to start.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to invite you to my blog http://freshlymessylife.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/the-hype-about-paint-chips/ where I have posted a link to this thread! My 14 month old doesn't have a concept of numbers yet so right now we organize colors brightest to darkest and enjoy playing with cardboard; but I think this is a fantastic idea, thank you for sharing!
ReplyDelete