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.

Leaping on Leap Day!

After seeing this idea on Teach Preschool, I thought I'd whip up some lily pads of our own this morning.

Bubble Counting Fish

I ran across this adorable bubble counting fish activity at My Montessori Journey and knew we needed a set of our own. While A refuses to learn her letters, she's proving to be a whiz at counting, so I'm trying to find engaging math activities appropriate for a two year old.

My Montessori Journey's fish are super-cute and sewn from felt, but I made these little guys out of craft foam from this template. After I cut each out, I glued-on a googly eye and wrote numbers 1-10 across their bellies.  Then they were ready to swim! How come I've never thought of using these florist glass gems in a craft before?

To play, simply ask your child to place the correct number of bubbles above the fish's head.

Ten Little Fish by Audrey Wood

I found the perfect book to go along with this activity! Ten little fish slowly disappear from the pages of this book, providing a countdown exercise that leaves one little lonely fish. That little fish soon finds a mate and they have - you guessed it - 10 little baby fish to be counted all over again. It's a simple, straightforward book that will reinforce the numbers 1-10. The computer-generated illustrations are bright and colorful... and full of bubbles!

Monsters! Monster Shapes

We're getting a lot of mileage out of our googly eyes this week. To make these cute (and oh so educational) shape monsters, all we needed was craft foam shapes, googly eyes, and lots and lots of glue.

A is never happier than when she's squeezing glue out onto something in copious amounts. Googly eyes were just a nice bonus.

With this one little activity we worked on our fine motor control, discussed the shapes and colors of the monsters, counted each of their eyes and talked about which eyes were bigger and smaller. Not bad for 50 cents worth of craft materials!

Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley

The Emberleys have a whole series of monster books out, but this was the one I could get my hands on. I'm so glad I did! Ingenious die cutting on each page makes this book such fun to read. As you turn each page a monster slowly appears, revealing his big yellow eyes and sharp white teeth through the die cuts on the page. Half way through the book you yell "You don't scare me!" and the subsequent pages hide each of the features until he's disappeared.

I fell in love with The Very Hungry Caterpillar at age 4 because of the die cuts in the book. I can only imagine how much I would have loved this one. My girls certainly do!

I'm linking up to:
- Play Academy @ Nurture Store
- Show & Tell @ ABC & 123
- Tot Tuesday @ My Delicious Ambiguity