Splat! A Disappearing Number Game for Kids

Each month we host Virtual Book Club for Kids and spotlight a new author. This month we are featuring books by Leo Lionni.

We love finding an opportunity to discover a new book, so this month we selected Leo Lionni's book

Colors, Numbers, Letters (3 Books in 1) to read. The book is a new one for us and perfect for babies and toddlers. My five-year-old even enjoyed "reading" it. Colors, Numbers, Letters is a wordless picture book that is full of cute illustrations while teaching about simple early-learning concepts.

Wordless picture books are amazing because they give kids an opportunity to use their imaginations to help tell the story. I love listening to the words my daughter puts together to create her own stories. I also tend to use language that is more developmentally appropriate when we look at wordless books and I use better descriptions when I am "reading"... so overall, the language my kids hear is much richer!

When we discussed the book, my son said we needed to do a related activity with colors and numbers.

At first I thought we really should try and come up with a mice themed activity since the characters in the book were mice... but since I like to let my kids take the lead in creating activities and allow their interests to dictate what we do... our activity ended up being a little different than I expected!

The kids and I invented our own game called Splat! Splat is a fun way to play with colors, numbers, and water!

Supplies: chalk, pool noodles (or other small items), surface to write on, cups, and water.

Directions:

This game evolved as we played, but the basic goal of the game was to match the correct number of pool noodle pieces to the chalk numbers on the ground.

The kids worked together as a team to collect the correct number of pool noodles and put them next to the matching number. The noodles also had to correspond with the correct color (green noodles with green chalk numbers, red noodles with red chalk numbers). My toddler is just learning her numbers, so we only focused on numbers 1-4. My five-year-old helped her read the numbers and worked with her to count... and recount the pool noodles to make sure there were enough.

I liked how we only used 2 colors and 4 numbers because that was the perfect amount for my toddler. Any more would have been overwhelming.

Once the pool noodle pieces were matched to the chalk numbers, the kids yelled SPLAT! and then they threw water at the number to make it disappear. Sometimes that also involved rubbing the chalk number with their hands too.

After they doused one number, they refilled their cups using our little pool (this was a great balancing activity... look at the concentration as they walk across the lawn).

Then they would start all over again!

It made me so happy to see the kids taking turns and working together and helping each other. I emphasized that it was a team building activity and it was so cool to see how seriously they took that and how well they cooperated.

Using water to learn is a favorite activity around here, so I'm sure you'll see a few more early learning water activities next month. Do you have a favorite water learning activity that you've tried?

What is your favorite Leo Lionni book? If you have blogged about it, we'd love for you to link up your post in the linky below! We can't wait to see all of your amazing ideas!

There are a few rules for this blog hop that we ask you to follow, so make sure to read them:

Link up only posts inspired by Leo Lionni that share children's book inspired crafts, activities, recipes, etc. Any other posts will be deleted.
Visit other blog posts on the linky and comment on or share the ones you love!
Add our Virtual Book Club button to your post if you'd like.

Here's the button you can grab if you are participating!

PS- If you missed any of our other Virtual Book Club Posts you can find them below:

June- Mo Willems

July- Don and Audrey Wood

August- Kevin Henkes

September- Lois Ehlert

October- Amy Krouse Rosenthal

November- Tomie dePaola

December- Jan Brett

January- David McPhail

February- Dr Seuss

March- Julia Donaldson

April- David Shannon

You can also find loads of Virtual Book Club ideas organized by author on our Virtual Book Club for Kids Pinterest Board that we just started and will continue to be adding to!

Come sign up for our Virtual Book Club Summer Camp if you want to fill your summer with books and learning fun! Just click on the image below to register for five FREE weeks of camp!