Family Storytime: Numbers

I think numbers might be my favorite concept theme. There's so many activity ideas for this theme and so many books. I always try to make sure at least two stories have a story line, or else you might end up with a bunch of count how many books that might not keep the group's interest. 

After our bean bag song, we read Count Your Chickens by Jo Ellen Bogart and Lori Joy Smith. This isn't so much a counting book as an example of many and more. We did choose to count some chickens in a few of the pages, but we mostly followed along to the rhyme. I chose this book because of it's zany illustrations and flow. 

Who wants to feed the Number Monster? Our first activity was feeding our friendly monster who usually devours the alphabet but enjoys eating numbers too. We used a box to make our monster and die-cut numbers for the group to feed him. It's always fun making the nom nom noises for him and letting out a big burp noise at the end.  

After Number Monster ate his 1's and 2's, it was time to count some goats. Let's Count Goats! by Mem Fox and Jan Thomas is a favorite of mine and every group I've read it to. As one storytimer pointed out to me, the goats look like dogs with horns.

Our next activity was a Number Fun rhyme. We called out the number that matched each rhyming word. 

The group was thirsty for more reading so we read the classic Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh and One Pup's Up by Marsha Wilson Chall. Mouse Count has a good, short story and One Pup's Up had us counting puppies galore. 

For our craft, we practiced our number and tracing skills by writing out how old we were and tracing the number as we glue cotton balls to our age.  

1, 2 buckle my shoe...