This month for Virtual Book Club for Kids we are featuring books by Mem Fox!
There are several Mem Fox books that we enjoyed checking out, but we decided to try out Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes since we hadn't read it before and then we created a fun activity to do along with it!
Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes is a rhyming board book that is darling and filled with babies of all types. My little toddler and my preschooler enjoyed the illustrations in the book as it talked about the many different places where babies live.
After we read the book, we used our own ten little fingers to create a handprint color matching game with paper plates! We also turned it into a GIANT memory game too!
This activity was super simple to make and easy to set up. It was also able to be adapted for older kids by changing it into a more challenging memory game.
Materials Needed: paper plates, pencil, a variety of crayons or markers, painter's tape (optional)
Prep:
Before we started playing our game we traced my son and daughter's hands onto paper plates with a pencil. I traced four right hands and four left hands for each kid so that we ended up with 16 plates (8 left hands and 8 right hands)!
After the handprints were traced with a pencil, we went over them quickly with different colored makers. We made a right and left hand in each color... so that each right hand had a matching left hand in that same color!
Note that I didn't trace the hands with the markers... I used a pencil. I have done that it the past and the kids just wind up with loads of markers on their hands.
To Play:
We played two different versions of this game... a COLOR MATCH GAME and a GIANT MEMORY GAME.
Color Match Game
For the color match game we laid out the handprints face up and spread them out. Then the kids took turns putting each plate with its color matched plate. They worked together a few times and then sometimes they each had a turn to match all of the plates.
This was a fun way to get kids moving and practicing their colors at the same time!
Giant Memory Game
For the giant memory game we turned the cards over so that we couldn't see any of the handprints. Then we played traditional memory!
If you aren't familiar with memory, here is how it is played...
The first player selects two cards and turns them over. She places them in the same spot where she picked them up from face up.
If they are a match, she keeps them. If they are not, she turns them back over (in the same spot) and it is the next person's turn. Players keep taking turns until all the plates are gone.
The goal of the game is to get the most matches!
For my three year old we only used 8 cards when we played memory (4 pairs) and with my five year old we used 16 cards.
This giant memory game and color matching game ended up being so fun that we played it again and again!
Do you have any favorite handprint or footprint crafts or activities to go along with this book by Mem Fox? Do you have any other favorite Mem Fox books?
If you've done a book related activity that goes along with one of Mem Fox's books, come link it up below! We'd love to check it out and share it on our Virtual Book Club for Kids Facebook page and our Virtual Book Club for Kids Pinterest Board.
I love Mem Fox. Looks like a great book. I will have to raid the picnic box for some paper plates as the boys would love this giant memory game made from their hands
You have some great and frugal ideas here! Thanks for always posting great things!