stamping crazy--open grid games

Lately the kids have been on a stamping craze. They're stamp-happy, stampin' nutty, and stopping everything to stamp up somethin'.

So I thought it would be the ideal time for me to capitalize on their current interest and to throw in a little learning along the way.

There are tons of cool things to do with stamps, but I created an Open Grid Game so that Owen and Cora could work on concepts of print (left to right, return sweep), their counting, and their fine motor skills.

All the while, these two are just thinking their mom is giving them one more reason to play with stamps. . .

• Open Grid Games: The concept is the same as any other Grid Game--Halloween, Rainy/ Sunny Games, or Bunnies, but this board is open--you can use stickers, stamps, or write a letter or number inside each box.

The Open Grid Game has two boards: one with four rows of eight boxes (for Owen) and one with three rows of five bigger boxes (for Cora). The Open Grid Game is here to download.

Owen counts his stamps

As Owen and Cora were busy stamping at the table the other day, I said to Owen, Hey Owen, grab your favorite small stamp, and I'll grab mine. You and I are going use the dice to see who can get the most stamps on the page. Ready?

Owen--always up for a game--said, Okay. Okay!

We used a small red dice that had numbers on it rather than dots, and it had nine sides, which I like. That way, we had the chance to roll higher and count higher. For Cora, however, I used the regular white dice with dots and six sides so she got extra practice counting the dots.

Owen has played Grid Games many times before, so he knew that after he rolled a '6', his first stamp would go in the top left box and that he then moved to the right, just like we read words on a page.

After he stamped his six stamps, I rolled, and I did the same thing only using a different stamp. When the boxes were filled, we wrote our names at the top of the page, counted our stamps, and wrote our number next to our name.

The winner had the higher number of stamps on the page.

We played a few times, switched stamps, and that was it. Quick, easy, and just a neat way of sneaking in a bunch of important skills.

I played next with Cora, and of course I wrote her number at the end, but she was totally and completely able--and excited--to play the same game that Owen played. She didn't even notice that she had a different board.

I think I'll try this again next week and use heart stickers. . . oooooooooooohhhh.

I'll say it again because it's that important:

Grid Games, as I've said before, are a super tool for teaching one-to-one correspondence which emergent readers need in order to understand that every single number and letter is important and that a group of letters is makes one word.

Grid Games also work on emphasizing the movement of left to right on a page and the return sweep--reading one whole line from start to finish before moving to the line below.

Math-wise, Grid Games work on counting--whether it's dots on a die or a number on a card--and then translating that number to a specific amount on a page, or the number of objects that are covered by a game piece.

For as long as they'll let me and for as long as they need 'em, I'll throw in a new Grid Game every few weeks.