Mother Goose Numbers on the Loose Activities for Grades K–2

Your Very Own Reproducible Numbers on the Loose!

Print these numbers out on card stock, tagboard, or plain paper, and then you and your class can help Mother Goose get them organized! Each student can color a favorite number, or the number that shows his or her age or birth date. They can put the numbers in order from least to greatest. They can have the letters hold hands in order to make two- or three-digit numbers. (If you want to make permanent two-digit numbers, you can glue the numbers’ hands together.) You and your students can tell your own stories about the numbers. And you should feel free to use them with calendar activities or to decorate a bulletin board in your classroom. Enjoy!

Download the Numbers activity!
(89 KB pdf/zip)

1-ery, 2-ery, tickery, ten . . .
We challenge you to count again!

One of the Dillons’ goals as they painted the illustrations for this book was to create many opportunities for children to count all sorts of things as they read and reread the rhymes. Here are some challenges to start your students—and no doubt you will find many more!

  • How many fish can you find throughout the book? [Answer: 8]

  • How many bicycles are there? [Answer: 4]

  • How many characters are wearing stripes? [Answer: At least 39 if you count a character with stripes only once, even if the character is pictured twice; at least 15 more if you count characters twice when they are shown twice. And even more than this if you count animals, like the bee, zebra, fish, and cat that have natural stripes!]

  • How many characters have glasses or goggles? [Answer: 7]

  • How many wheels can you see? [Answer: 32]

  • How many musical instruments? [Answer: At least 15, and more if you count each jingle bell on a shoe separately or if you count the whistle that is shown 3 times more than once.]

  • Are there more chickens or more pigs in the book? [Answer: There are more chickens.]

  • Are there more drums or more horns in the parade on the endpapers? [Answer: There are more horns.]

  • Who has the most buttons in the parade on the endpapers? [Answer: The horn player in blue under the number 8.]

  • Who is bringing the most dishes to be washed in the illustration of the second rhyme? [Answer: The middle character is bringing the most dishes (16).]

  • Who is bringing the fewest dishes to be washed? [Answer: The character on the far left is bringing the fewest dishes (6).]

  • Are there more hats or aprons in the book? [Answer: There are many aprons, but even more hats.]

  • Can you write a math sentence that goes with the rhyme “Chook, chook, chook . . .”? [Answer: 4 + 4 + 2 = 10]

Your Own Reproducible Mini–Mother Goose Books

“Reading” Mother Goose rhymes they’ve already memorized is a wonderful way for emerging readers to practice their early reading skills, and these mini one-rhyme books will allow your students to do just that. They also challenge students to imagine the rhymes in their own way and to create their own illustrations—helping to develop visualization, an important comprehension skill. Print out these pages, copy them, and then cut and order the pages as marked. Staple along the left side, and you will have handy take-home books for your students to keep!

Download the 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe activity!
(24 KB pdf/zip)
Download the Baa, Baa Black Sheep activity!
(23 KB pdf/zip)
Download the Gregory Griggs activity!
(23 KB pdf/zip)

Class Books Based on Rhymes

3 Good Wishes

One of the great rhymes in the book is “Wash the dishes, / Wipe the dishes, / Ring the bell for tea; / 3 good wishes, / 3 good kisses, / I will give to thee.” Thinking about wishes is fun and inspiring. Challenge your students to use the Dillons’ special “3 Wishes” paper to write 3 wishes they have for themselves, for our world, for a friend, a classmate, or a member of their families. This can be a fun beginning-of-the-year activity if children are writing about their own wishes for themselves; it can be a New Year’s activity in January; or a birthday tradition in a classroom, with all the children giving good wishes to the birthday child. To make the children’s work into a simple class book, just staple the pages together with construction paper as the front and back covers.

Download the Three Good Wishes activity!
(33 KB pdf/zip)

Madam, I’ve Got Ten

A math, writing, and illustrating challenge that’s appropriate for first- or second-grade children is to have them rewrite the rhyme “Chook, chook, chook . . .” using a different number combination. (Instead of 4, 4, and 2, they might use 3, 3, and 4; 1, 1, and 8; etc.) You can challenge your students to use the sheet below to write and draw as many different combinations as they can find, then see if the class can determine how many different combinations there can be. The pages the students create can be stapled together to make a class book.

Download the Chook activity!
(14 KB pdf/zip)

Early in the Morning

If your class is learning to tell time, you can have the students change the time in the rhyme “Early in the morning at 8 o’clock.” Make a class book with the pages in order according to the times the students chose. What would Ella be doing at different times of day? Jumping up from bed? From the dinner table? From reading a book? Would Ella be taking a bath, going to recess, or playing at home? Challenge your students to make an illustration, and mark the time correctly on the clock face provided.

Download the Clock activity!
(20 KB pdf/zip)

These activities were written by Anne Davies, a first-grade teacher in Seattle, Washington.