Baker's Dozen Selections: Counting

This book is a lot of fun and presents the opportunity for adults and children to practice counting together.  Adults can consider their young reader’s age, interests, and development and decide if they would enjoy counting the dogs on some of the pages or just allowing time for children to take in the illustrations.  Some children might take the lead in pointing and counting, and others may appreciate support and modeling from an adult. A fun idea might be for the adult to count one part of each page (ex: 4 dogs guard the sausages) and the child to count the other part (6 dogs not impressed)

By previewing the book ahead of time, adults can recognize the author’s intentional matching of the first letter of each number and object to be counted. With this knowledge, adults can allow children to explore each page in their own way and help them problem solve when a page contains more than meets the eye. 123 Dream combines counting with the game of “I Spy,” which is something that can extend beyond the book. For example, after counting “two turtles” in the book, an adult can ask a child to look around their environment for something else that begins with letter “t.” Or, while waiting at the doctor’s office, an adult could ask a child to find something red. When the child discovers the object, the adult can add a new challenge by asking the child to count the number of red objects they can find in the room.

Encourage families to let children explore this book at their own pace. Some will want to hear you read and talk about the whole book, while others may only want to read a few sections at a time. Children will like sitting with family members and taking turns naming letters, counting, naming colors, etc., with them. They would enjoy extensions to the book such as mixing colors, finding their own toys that begin with certain letters, or counting groups of toys. Children can learn new vocabulary if families encourage them to tell about the toys and what they are doing on many of the pages.

Encourage families to build fun counting games into everyday activities. While reading the story, adults and children can count together. What other objects can they count at home? Using a stamp pad, children can make fingerprint designs on paper. Add to the picture using markers or crayons to turn these prints into creatures. After the artwork is completed, count the creatures created.

This book can help demonstrate to families the importance of sign and symbol recognition in early emergent literacy. Share the book and discuss with families other known signs that children often recognize in their environment. One behavior that can help develop a child's reading ability is to identify signs and labels in their environment. Families can encourage early literacy by pointing out environmental print in the child's world. A fun activity at a parent meeting might be creating an airplane travel prop box for children to use in the classroom. The prop box could include signs, passports, luggage, paper money, and so on.

Explain to families that the digital photography in this book offers many opportunities for children to interact with the illustrations. Read the story to children and have them count specific items mentioned on each page (e.g., one wastebasket, two counters). Some of the illustrations resemble “I Spy” books and can be used for additional activities that incorporate counting. For example, on the first double-spread, ask, “Can you find three lamp posts?” or “How many windows do you see on this building? Can you find a building with more windows?”

Involve family members in encouraging children to invent their own stories in sentences, and in writing down each sentence for the children. Then, help the children count the number of sentences in their stories. Talk about the basic elements of a story, and ask children to help identify the beginning, middle, and end of their tales.

As the adult reads this book to children, repeat each new rule to the listeners. Then before turning the page, ask them to tell what they imagine Scamp will do. Be sure to look at the pictures for evidence of Scamp breaking the rules. For example, he comes inside with muddy feet and flowers hanging on his fur after being told that he has to “stay out of the flower bed.” Children will enjoy noticing how the list of things that Scamp is ALLOWED to do continues to get longer each time he breaks a rule. Scamp’s lists provide a good springboard for discussing the importance of families making lists for organizing and remembering. Children can assist in creating, writing, drawing, and reading lists such as ones for groceries, tasks to be done, etc.

Adults may notice ellipsis (…) on several pages in this book.  This kind of punctuation sometimes means that words are missing. In this case, an ellipse means that the reader should pause before reading on. When pausing before reading the rest of the question, it is easy to trick the listener into counting further than one. But children soon learn to wait and listen carefully!  Adults can scan the QR code on the book’s back cover to provide children with multiple opportunities to listen to the story, turn the pages themselves, and recognize some of the printed words.   

During adult-child re-reads, take turns choosing something else to count on each page, e.g., “How many ducks are NOT wearing rollerblades?”  This is a good game to use while waiting while out and about with children too: “How many chairs in this room. . . have arms?” 

This book is a perfect vehicle for introducing families to the importance of incorporating "math talk" into children's daily lives, thereby making mathematics and numbers more familiar when children begin formal schooling. Activities could include: measuring and recording children's height and weight regularly, counting items while setting the table, making certain to find all eight crayons at clean-up time. These activities help children understand numbers and their usefulness. Discuss other ways families can incorporate "math talk" into their children's lives.

In addition to the funny story, Mouse Went Out to Get a Snack reviews the concept of counting up to 10 and counting back down again. Remind the families that letting the children look for, point to, and count the food items will add time to the reading session, but is an important way that children interact with books and reinforces the children's concept of counting.

Suggest families involve the children in color and number naming while they share the book. Discuss with families the message of this book and how we can build empathy with children through story. Help families construct questions they might ask while they read the story. For example: How did Blue feel? Why didn’t Yellow say anything? Was that fair? Encourage families to model statements about feelings on everyday life. For Example, “I’ll bet that hurt Ethan’s feelings.”

One Fox: A Counting Book Thriller is a terrific title to explain some of the components of picture books and how they enhance a child’s beginning literacy. First talk to adults about the front and back endpapers of a book. In this case, many-colored fox paw prints illustrate the front endpapers, while the back endpapers show multi-colored chickens. It’s an opportunity to discuss the idea of predicting what the story might be about. Predicting helps children prepare for reading and begin to make meaning. You might ask children to start thinking about what might happen between the fox prints in the beginning and chickens at the end. Another component of this picture book is that all of the pages are double-page spreads. A double-page spread means that the text or the image crosses over the binding in the middle to create one page. Some picture books will have a combination of double-page spreads and single pages of text and images. These page distinctions influence how a reader’s eyes move when reading and looking at the illustrations. Remind adults that when they point and count objects from left to right or top to bottom they are teaching their children an important tracking skill in learning to read.

Share information about the importance of math literacy: reciting numbers in sequence, rational counting using one-to-one correspondence, recognizing number symbols, etc. Remind families that children need lots of time and practice to really acquire this knowledge and that enjoying this book together over repeated readings is a perfect way to practice. Teach your families how to encourage these two skills as they share this book: counting on from a given number and counting objects that are not in a neat or linear array (e.g., the spots on the leopard).

Explain to families how to use this book as a learning tool for shapes, colors, and combinations of ten. Reinforce colors by having children identify colors on each page. Help children understand combinations of ten by having them count objects on the page and add the numbers together. For example: “Six plain dogs + four spotted dogs = 10 dogs.” Use the final page of the book to create number sentence flash cards. Suggest that families match the number sentence flash cards with the pictures in the book that depict the number sentence displayed. (e.g., Nine pink tongues + one blue tongue = 10 or 9+1=10).