Mermaid Counting

A still has a hard time with number recognition, and I'd like her to have that down before she starts pre-K in the fall. Going along with our mermaid theme this week, I made these cards for her to practice with. She has to recognize the number and then add the correct number of "bubbles" around the mermaid.

It's exactly like the counting fish we made last year, except with mermaids. :) To make the cards I took this coloring sheet from Making Art Fun and colored it six different ways in Photoshop, adding a number for each. (You could simply print it out multiple times and use good old fashioned crayons if Photoshop is not your thing.) Six, seven, and nine still seem to stump her, so I think we may be returning to this activity out throughout the summer.

Dora Saves Mermaid Kingdom! 

 

A loves this book. I don't... but fostering good readers isn't always about dictating which books your kids read. Sometimes it involves reading a garishly colored book about one of your least favorite cartoon characters turning into a mermaid. ;)

Mermaids

by Cynthia Heinrichs

 

To make up for the Dora recommendation, here's one I'd really like to read. It's not at our library, but if it's at yours, check it out and let me know what you think!

From Amazon: "For hundreds of years women on Cheju Island in South Korea have supported their families by diving to the ocean floor to collect seaweed and the various edible creatures found there. It is Jae Hyun's dream to be a haenyo, a mermaid, like her mother and grandmother, but her mother forbids it. The life of a haenyo is a dangerous one. She wants a better life, a safer life, for her daughter. Then tragedy strikes and Jae Hyun's courage is tested, as is her dream. She must prove to herself and to her mother that she is worthy of the choice she has made. This is a story that celebrates the old world of tradition and honor and the new world, one in which girls and women have the freedom to choose the lives they want for themselves."