Counting Fish
Make a Counting Book

Activity Overview

Counting books are a staple of early childhood literacy because they promote early number sense, engage students in math concepts in a captivating way, and help forge the connection between literacy and numeracy. While students are building their own counting books in this activity they are interacting with quantities in different ways, practicing counting, and creating their own mathematical tool. Working on a multi-step project like this also encourages young learners to practice focusing for longer periods of time and investing time and energy in more complex projects.

What You Need

• Harry Bear and Friends: Count Fish by Elliot Kreloff on Epic

• Counting Book Template to print

• Counting Book Fish to print (You may need to print multiple copies depending on how many pages your student makes)

• Child scissors

• Glue stick or tape

• Stapler or a hole puncher and pipe cleaner

• Optional: construction paper or stickers

• Optional: markers, crayons, colored pencils, or paint

Steps

Important Note: This activity calls for a lot of cutting. If your student is not yet ready, loses interest, or grows tired of cutting, try these modifications: Work on one or two number pages a day. Represent the numbers in other ways, such as by tearing and pasting pieces of construction paper or by peeling and placing stickers.

1. Before reading, take a picture walk through the text Harry Bear and Friends: Count Fish by Elliot Kreloff. Guide your student to look at the pictures and verbalize observations about what they see, including the attributes of the fish in the pictures (color, size, shape). Make predictions about what the characters may do and the events that may take place. Then, read the book.

2. Guide your student in following the steps to make the pages of their Counting Book:

   1. Print the Counting Book Template and as many pages of the Counting Book Fish as you need.

   2. Cut out the fish along the dotted lines.

   3. Choose one page from the template. Look at the number at the top of the page. Ask your student what number it is. If needed, count the dots to identify the number.

   4. Adhere the corresponding quantity of fish onto the page.

   5. Continue with each number. Work up to a number as high as your student is confident with. Perhaps you make pages for numbers up to three or four, and add pages up to 10 in future sessions.

3. Assemble the pages into a book. Order the pages and line up the tops of the pages. Staple three times, or hole punch, thread, and tie a pipe cleaner through.

4. Read your student’s Counting Book!

5. Re-read the last two pages of Harry Bear and Friends: Count Fish. Play hide-and-seek while practicing counting from 10 to one!

Guiding Questions

• What do you see?

• What animals do you see?

• How many fish are there?

• What color is [this fish]? What shape? What size?

• Is this fish [wiggly]?

• What are [the fish] doing?

Extensions

• Use your playdough to make different fish. Here are some ideas: big fish, small fish, short fish, long fish, squiggly fish, straight fish, happy fish, sad fish.

• Add some color to your fish by painting or decorating them.