# data[].attributes.body
Book: When a Line Bends, A Shape Begins by Rhonda Greene

Materials: Pipe Cleaners

Invitation:

Can you make a line with your body? Verticle lines--stand up straight!

Horizontal lines--lay down flat!

Diagonal lines--lean against a wall with your hands and feet as far from the wall as you can.

Curveed lines--bend you body by leaning over and place your hands on the floor in front of you.

Now use a pipecleaner.

Can you make the line vertical, horizontal, and diagonal? Can you bend the line?

Can you bend the line to form a circle? Attach both ends of the line.

Now how can you change your circle to form a triangle, rectangle, square, and other shapes? How many sides does each have? How many vertices?

# data[].attributes.body
Bird Count: Creature Counts Activity

Literacy: Read the book Bird Count

Take a nature walk around the campus counting birds and other aspects of nature, recording their data in a journal. Whole class discussion on data findings. Create a whole class bar graph.

Send it home as a family activity.

Can be extended to other aspects of birds and their habitat.

# data[].attributes.body
10 minutes till bedtime

Have a station with different types of form of time. (Sand timer, clocks, digital timers, cooking timers, phone timers, etc.)

# data[].attributes.body
Book: Actual Size

Activity: measuring foot prints/ hand prints with other objects. Example: How many paper clips measure to the gorilla hand?

Materials: Print outs of hand/foot prints, use real objects representing the hand/foot prints, paper clips, popsicle sticks, small cubes, etc.

# data[].attributes.body
Carrot and Pea

Matetials:

Felt Peas and Carrots or Real

Number stones

Paper/clip boards

Rulers

Children can engage in measurement with traditional and non traditions measurement tools. They can document on paper thier findings. Findings can later be added to a while group chart.

# data[].attributes.body
Book: Balancing Act

Topics: Weight, balancing, equal amounts, equality

Activity: Create a balance scale and explore which items will balance others. How many apples will balance two bananas?

Resources:

Cardboard tubese

painter's tape

tennis balls

tag board

various objects of varying weights & textures, (counting bears, rocks, pinecones, small plastic animals, etc.)

# data[].attributes.body
Book - Penny Pot:

https://www.countplayexplore.org/sites/countplayexplore.org/files/books/book-guides/2024-04/book-guide-the-penny-pot.pdf

Related Activity - Ten Rummy:

https://www.earlymathca.org/_files/ugd/77455d_737e40915c4447f781d4aeed6980a704.pdf

Materials: Coins, fake money, cards

Great for supporting parents to use money with their children!

# data[].attributes.body
At the end of the story, Hermit Crab must find a larger shell.

Ask your child to predict what the crab will do and what his new home will look like based on the crab’s former actions and the information in the story.

Teachers can use this for planning to build a home connection to school.

Preschool/TK

Algebra and Functions 2.0 Children begin to

recognize simple, repeating patterns; 2.1 Begin to identify or recognize a simple repeating pattern.

Geometry 2.0 Children begin to understand positions in space; 2.1 Identify positions of object and people in space, such as in/on, under/over, up/down, inside/outside, beside/between, and in front/behind.

# data[].attributes.body
Balancing Act - concepts of heavy & light, equal, balance, unequal, how many

Would align well with Balance workshop.

# data[].attributes.body
Book: Vincent Paints His House

Need: book guide, sidewalk chalk, large stencils for shapes

Activity: This is an outdoor activity. Make a hopscotch using shapes or with numbers. Another activity is mixing colors using the chalk

# data[].attributes.body
Book: Who Sank the Boat? by Pamela Allen

Activity: Test various items to see if they sink or float. Then build a boat that floats.

Materials: Variety of sink/float materials, Boat building materials such as clay, tinfoil, craft sticks, toothpicks, paper, cork, milk carton, etc., water table

# data[].attributes.body
CPIN Region 8 Team-

Balance STEAM Station- using Balancing Act book & Activity Guide.

# data[].attributes.body
Have families take a walk at the park and collect various nature items and work together to classify items. For an example, a collection of twigs or twigs. Or a trip to the grocery store, and sort items by color and shapes.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
“Kids, young and old, fall in love with math when they see how real-life and effortless it becomes thanks to these books.” —Kimberly D. Mueller, Ed.D., Firs…

# data[].attributes.body
Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Materials: Plastic coat hanger, yarn, plastic cups (12 oz.), hole puncher. Pre-assemble: punch 1 holes on opposite sites of each cup just under the lip/opening of the cup. Insert one foot-long piece yarn into holes and tie knots. Fit one loop of yarn over each of the sides of the coat hanger to make a "balance scale."

Materials for Math pack: small materials--rocks, sticks, buttons, corks, clothes pins.

Invitations:

1. Place objects one at a time in each cup to compare their mass.

2. How can you make it balance using different objects?

# data[].attributes.body
Carrot and Pea - ramps set up in the classroom: both a nice set that the preschool already has, and an adapted ramp set made of materials families would have around the house. Children could check to see if things roll, stack or both, and then organize them into buckets. We would raffle off one ramp set to a lucky family, but anyone could adapt the activity with our model of home-based materials.

https://countplayexplore.org/book/carrot-and-pea

# data[].attributes.body
Include button sorting Activity to pair with the book, book guide, and materials (buttons, large rubber bands for classifying). https://www.countplayexplore.org/sites/countplayexplore.org/files/activities/2024-02/77455d_0e4d451abfb7484086152fbb1c0f05b9.pdf

# data[].attributes.body
One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab

Perfect for kinder/first. Different ways to make 10 based on the number of feet animals have. People are 2, dogs are 4, etc. Not a lot of materials needed. Possibly 10 frames and marking chips.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
One is a Snail Ten is a Crab | Count Play Explore

# data[].attributes.body
Actual Size

Topics: Measurement, comparisons, patterning

Activities: Compare size of shoes, find comparisons, smallest, largest, patterns on bottom of shoes, types of shoes (classifications)

# data[].attributes.body
A Chair for my Mother by Vera B Williams

Book guide: https://www.countplayexplore.org/sites/countplayexplore.org/files/books/book-guides/2025-03/A%20Chair%20for%20my%20Mother%20-%20Book%20Guide%20REMEDIATED.pdf

Related Activities: Animal sets or First to 100

Material for A Chair for My Mother: pretend coins. Images of coins, real coins,

# data[].attributes.body
Cook it, Book guide activity-Prepping time - Show your child how to use measuring cups. Help your child measure ingredients.

DIY Pizza with english muffins...measure and count ingredients...bake temp and time

# data[].attributes.body
Worm Weather

Rain

Coats

Magnifying glass

Read book and then take class for a Worm Walk after a rain to see what can be found

Then compare to our raise on a sunny day.

Also could learn about worms

# data[].attributes.body
Baby Goes to Market

Flannel Story with Fruits and Veggies/basket for children to sort fruit during the story

Activity for children to sort fruits and veggies.

Materials:

fruit & veggie counters with baskets

real fruit

scale to compare weight of fruits

# data[].attributes.body
Book: Rosie Revere, Engineer

Activity: Parents and students will build a paper airplane that flies through a hula hoop of different colors to earn points. They will also be able to explore creating different airplanes using different materials.

Needs: Resource in Spanish. Hyperlink is not available in Spanish

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Rosie Revere, ingeniera | Count Play Explore

# data[].attributes.body
Circle Sphere! by Grace Lin

Materials: Different shaped bubble wands, bubble solution

Blow bubbles from different shaped wands and make predictions about the shapes of the bubbles

# data[].attributes.body
Ada, twist scientist.

Book guide

Activity-What would happen to the seeds?

Materials-table spoons, 3 plastic bags, 6 seeds, soil, 6 cotton balls, 2 paper towels.

# data[].attributes.body
Bee-bim Bop!

Love the Plan a Meal activity because there is so much math!

Materials: Recipe, with the right quantities for each ingredients

Can create a shopping list

Use Measuring tools

Explore containers, bowls, plates for shapes

Creation of the recipe with mixing and prepping

# data[].attributes.body
A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle

Materials: Seashells; Venn Diagram or Sorting bowls

Invitations:

1. Count the seashells.

2. Sort the seashells by one attribute: color, pattern, size, shape.

3. Sort the seashells again by another attribute.

4. Place the seashells in size order from smallest to largest or largest to smallest.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A House for Hermit Crab | Count Play Explore

# data[].attributes.body
Make a CPE STEAM Station

Choose a Book

Book Guide

Related Activity

What materials or resources do you need?