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My bloggy pal Hilary over at Raising Fairies and Knights started a fun Monthly Crafting Book Club - a challenge to create activities to go along with some of the most beloved children's books.
We had some great fun last year, just take a look:
January - Animal Action Dice Game for the book Barnyard Dance
February - Cause & Effect Box for If You Give a Moose a Muffin
March - an alphabetical scavenger hunt for Dr. Seuss's ABC.
April - handwashing fun to go along with The Piggy in the Puddle
May - 5 Little Monkeys Fold 'Em Up for Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
June - pinecone princess & Cozy Sweater Warrior Paper Dolls for The Princess and the Pony
July - lantern craft for Curious George Goes Camping
August - mini backpacks & dress-a-doll fun for Froggy Goes to School
September - pumpkin fun for It's Pumpkin Day, Mouse!
October - monster shape-sort bags & other crafts for Have You Seen My Monster?
November - cozy paper quilt for Bear Stays Up for Christmas
December - snowflake activities for Millions of Snowflakes
This year, we're starting things off with Ladybug Girl:
This is a special book for us because Gv's copy was given to her just after she was born by a very special former student of mine - one whose first name is the same as Gv's middle name.
(When you're a teacher, it's virtually impossible to choose a name for your child because it seems no matter which one you come up with, you immediately think of a "challenging" student who had that name.
Or maybe the memories of students with that name are actually lovely, but you had fifteen of them over the years...
So when you have a student whose name you actually feel good about using, that says they must be pretty darn special!)
This month's project was more of an activity than a craft, although since we created our own activity pieces, there was still a pretty big crafty element to it.
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| I drew the ladybug body & head onto a folded-up piece of black construction paper and Gv cut it out. Then I traced the body onto red construction paper, folded it up, had Gv cut it out and I snipped the red in half lengthwise. We added number stickers to the bodies and I used a black marker to draw dots on the red wings. |
The idea for this project actually came to me pretty quickly, because it just made total sense to use ladybug dots for a number game.
If your child is still working on number recognition, then you could create single-piece wings with the appropriate number of dots on each for placement on the correct numbered body.
But if your child is ready for the next step, you can make them like this:
I'm calling them "Ladybug Girl Addition Bugs," but that's only because that title is much easier to deal with than their correct technical description, which is part/part/whole bugs.
You see, before you start discussing things like plus and equal signs with your youngster, you'll want to lay the foundation that larger numbers (wholes) are composed of smaller numbers (parts).
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| For example, these are all the possible ways to make five (although you can also include the 5/0, 3/2 and 4/1 if your child is ready to be gently introduced to the commutative property of addition). |
There are so many options for playing with these little critters. You can focus on all the ways to make just one number, like I did for the five up there, or you can find parts that make just even numbers, or odd numbers, or doubles facts, doubles plus one facts, or even play around a bit with the Fibonacci Sequence!
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| Part/part/whole for odd numbers through 5. |
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| Doubles, which turn out to always be even - how fun to let your child discover this fact! |
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| Another way to explore these part/part/whole relationships - adding the combinations in increasing order produces odd numbers! |
You know something's a winner when it's being played with so much it can't even be put back into the box where it's stored.
That's just what has happened with these fun little bugs - they've made it back into their zippy bag each day, but have yet to get put back into the "game" box on Gv's shelf.
Yay for another learning-while-playing win!
I love coming up with book connections like these, how about you? I'd love to hear! Either leave a comment below or email me at lisahealy (at) outlook (dot) com.
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Check out the other amazing crafts that my fellow bloggers came up with for this month.
Come back next month and see what crafts and activities we come up with for Giraffes Can't Dance. Join our Facebook Group HERE to participate.
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