March Match, Number Names Game

After reading these two books that make great March read-alouds, I was thinking about the ways they are alike and different.  St. Patrick's Day by Gail Gibbons is a nonfiction book, heavy on the facts.  I learned a few new things myself from this book.  Green Shamrocks is a animal fiction story (animal fantasy as the characters talk), and is rather silly.  Pages in both books are covered with green.  

Comparing and contrasting the two books, the Venn diagram looks something like this:

I was then thinking about Kindergarten and grade 1 learning different names for numerals, which also takes some comparing and contrasting.  At first it can be confusing to learn that a numeral has several different names.  People have different names, too, if we stop and think about it.  

Here are some names for a girl.  There is only one person, Molly, but she is called different names by different people:

Opps!  Can't leave the boys out . .  .

Here are some names for numbers (numerals):

Now here is my game of the month for PreK + K Sharing:

MARCH MATCH

Happy learning!

     

Penguin ABC and 123 Fun

Free Valentine and Penguin Matching Games

Baby Penguin Slips and Slides by Michael Teitelbaum may be read in several different ways, which is wonderful considering how many times parents and teachers reread books to children. Throughout this book beginning reader words are large and bold, such as in this sentence on page six:

"Baby Penguin and his friends climb up the hill."

This text feature allows teacher or parent to read with the children.  This book would be great to project using a document camera in a classroom.  The book has fact stops on many pages, and the book could just be read as nonfiction by only reading the facts.  The story is multi-genre with some fiction that is never far from the truth, such as "They warm up in the sunshine."

The story could be read without mentioning the facts, or even in its entirety.  

The generic matching games could be used with any penguin story, or even without a story.  

There are four games in this FREE 52 page PDF, available in the Early Education Emporium online store:  

1. ABC Upper and Lower Case Letter Match 

2. Match Numbers 1-12 with Number Words

3. Easy Addition Match

4. Valentine Penguin Game

Also, click on these words for a separate PDF of words in bold in the story for pocket chart use. (7 more pages)

 Have fun reading and working with your students and children!