I don't know about you, but some of my favorite books are counting books. So I picked out a few of the best and took the children on a mathematical journey during our first storytime of the year.
Our old friend, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, got us started. Not only can you count all of the things the caterpillar eats, but Eric Carle also sneeks other math concepts into this fun story like sequencing, days of the week, and making comparisons.
Even after all that junk food, the caterpillar was still hungry! But then he did an amazing thing and turned into something else.
Of course, caterpillars aren't the only hungry critters we know. Next we sang a lively classic about Five Green and Speckled Frogs and counted backwards from 5 to 0. My "handy" visual aid helped as we sang.
Ethan Long's simple rhyming story about a fly in a soup bowl was a lot of fun to read. Ask your children who got the soup in the end (hint: we found him hiding on every page!)
Next we learned a fun fingerplay about five bees in a beehive:
No counting storytime would be complete without Pete the Cat. (I honestly cannot stop singing Pete's groovy song in my head... a storytime earworm!)
Poor Pete! His buttons keep popping off his shirt. But does Pete cry? Goodness no! Buttons come and buttons go!
When we got to the end of the story and all of Pete's buttons had popped off and rolled away, Pete found an ingenious way to keep singing his song that had everyone laughing!
Our last fingerplay was one that is fun for toddlers and twos as well as older kids. They really got into it!
Unfortunately we didn't have time to read all of my favorite counting stories. But here are a few terrific titles that you can read at home. Let me know if you have any other favorite books with numbers and maybe we can include them next time. Happy reading and counting!
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