One to Ten and Back Again!

We've been playing with the book "One to Ten and Back Again" by Nick Sharratt and Sue Heap this week.

The children love the bright, simple, colourful  illustrations and have a lot of fun counting the items on each page.  L thinks it's really funny that Nick and Sue are friends.

We made it into a counting and number recognition game using little pebbles from the beach with the numbers 1 to 10 written on them with a permanent marker pen.  Each time we counted the number if items on the page, we tried to find the pebble with the right number on it.

Then we put the number pebbles in the treasure basket with a beautiful wooden tray with little compartments carved into it.  M loved to take the pebbles and arrange them in the wooden tray.

The next time we read the story, we used clean plastic milk bottle tops with the numbers 1 to 10 written on top in permanent marker pen.  And then those props ended up in the treasure basket too!

Why not try adding natural resources to a story book to make the storytelling more interesting and interactive?  Or to inspire heuristic play even after the story has finished and the book's been put away in my "special bag" for next time!