Ten Black Dots

Today we read Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews.  Once we were done with the book, I printed out number coloring pages.  I was disappointed that there were only the numbers 0-9.  I would have liked to have the number 10 as well, but Arin didn't seem to mind.  Once the pages were printed, I trimmed away the excess paper and stapled the numbers together, making a book.  Then, Arin went page by page and stamped the correct number of dots on each number, using her Do A Dot markers.  She loves those markers and she has a love for counting (she takes after her grandma for that) so this was a great activity for her.

Next, I made a game, which I found in Peggy Kaye's book, Games with Books.  (We love activities to go with the books that we read, so I was thrilled to find this book that is full of ideas and I do not have to come up with them all on my own).  The game consisted of 14 dotted cards - some requiring you to move forward and some to move backward, a game board, and playing pieces.  I love games like this that require the players to move a certain number of spaces.  Arin still gets confused sometimes on which space she needs to start counting from, so I love to have a variety of games to reinforce this skill. 

Lastly, we used Games with Books to inspire the final activity, however, we put our own twist on it.  The book suggested making fingerprint dots.  Make one dot and circle it, make two dots and circle them, make three dots and circle them and so on.  Instead, I had Arin make fingerprint dots to fill the paper.  Then, I gave her a die.  She would roll the die and then circle that amount of dots.  Arin loved making the fingerprints and she loved rolling the die, but circling the correct number of dots didn't rank anywhere close to a favorite activity.  Perhaps it was so overwhelming with so many dots.  I probably should have just followed the book's directions for this activity.