Activities for Loreen Leedy Books!

Here is a handy list of links to download FREE printable activities and ideas to engage children with informational picture books such as Step by Step, Fraction Action, Amazing Plant Powers, and Seeing SYMMETRY by Loreen Leedy. Activities include writing, drawing, labeling, puzzles, presentations, coloring, and more.

The direct links below will take you to each resource in my Teachers Pay Teachers shop...enjoy! For all free book activities, click here.

• This 50+ page PDF guide to all Leedy math, science, social studies, and language arts picture books includes 2 X 2 = BOO!, There’s a Frog in My Throat, and Crazy Like a Fox: a Simile Story. Each book’s page includes a summary, reviews, art notes, and one or more activity ideas for students. Additional printables for Measuring Penny, My Teacher is a Dinosaur, and more are in the ZIP file.

• Amazing Plant Powers: How Plants Fly, Fight, Hide, Hunt, & Change the World is packed with photos and information about plant adaptations such as thorns, bark, flowers, and much more. The printables include a photosynthesis diagram to complete and a writing prompt to record plant products in the classroom such as paper, wood, and fiber.

• Crazy Like a Fox: A Simile Story tells how Rufus the fox sneaks up behind Babette the sheep to roar like a lion (which makes her as mad as a hornet) plus other antics to entice Babette to chase him to her own surprise birthday party. This PowerPoint presentation reviews the similes in the book using photographs of the real things used as comparisons (lion, daisy, and so on.)

• Jack & the Hungry Giant Eat Right with MyPlate updates the classic tale with a giant chef named Waldorf. This popular PDF (over 30,000 downloads) includes a graphic organizer to list items from the different food groups and a MyPlate template to draw and color.

• Missing Math: A Number Mystery shows how impossible life would be without numbers and math; we couldn’t keep score, have birthdays, use clocks, computers, or phones, and so much more. This poster prompts kids to design a new book cover and summarize their thoughts about the many ways that numbers are important.

• My Teacher is a Dinosaur and Other Prehistoric Poems, Jokes, Riddles, & Amazing Facts takes readers on a whirlwind tour from the early days of life on Earth to the emergence of humankind. These printable pages include a scavenger hunt inside the book, a prehistoric word search, and a book report poster prompt.

• Seeing SYMMETRY is a great STEM title to help children visualize math concepts such as wholes, halves, equality, transformations, and other math concepts in the world around them. This resource includes ideas for introducing the book, a scavenger hunt for images in the illustrations, draw-the-missing-half pages for a tiger or a triceratops, and templates for creating original designs with line or rotational symmetry.

• Step by Step is a guessing game about baby animal tracks for preschool, kindergarten, and first graders. Download this PDF for coloring pages with baby animals and their footprints, a craftivity, directions to make Animal Track Snacks, plus drawing and labeling activities. 

• 2 X 2 = BOO! A Set of Spooky Multiplication Stories stars ghosts, cats, witches, and skeletons in funny problems. The printable has a writing prompt for examples from the book and space to draw and write equations about something good to multiply (e.g. candy apples) as well as something bad such as smelly socks.

Thanks for stopping by and happy reading, teaching, and creating!

Loreen Leedy
Children's author-illustrator
Facebook: @authorLoreenLeedy
Pinterest: @LoreenLeedy

A baby sea turtle coloring page extension for the picture book Step by Step by Loreen Leedy

Animal Tracks Snacks!

To celebrate my new book Step by Step, I’ve been brainstorming ideas for using it in the classroom, such as in this previous post. Recently, while browsing through Instagram, some creative posts under hashtags such as #funfoodforkids and #healthykidsfood inspired me into a flurry of scribbling. Wouldn’t it be fun to munch on some pepperoni paw prints or deer footprints in cream cheese “snow”? 

Scribbling down some #funfood ideas for snacks that look like animal tracks.

To briefly summarize the book, each right hand page has tracks made by a variety of baby animals including mammals, reptiles, birds, and invertebrates. Each adorable (or at least intriguing) baby is revealed to young readers on the next page. The simple repetitive text and realistic illustrations make it an ideal informational book for PreK, Kindergarten, and First grade classrooms.

Cover and pages from Step by Step, a book of baby animal  tracks. Click image to get freebie pages in my TPT shop.

The appetizing snack examples shown in the photos are duckling, fawn, puppy, and penguin tracks, which are easy to make. The paw prints are cut up pepperoni slices, the fawn track is an almond cut in half, and the penguin’s are pretzel sticks carefully “sawn” with a serrated knife.

Just a few of the yummy snacks you can make to tie in with animal tracks, baby animals, nature, wildlife, and similar themes.

The duckling tracks started as a square slice of cheese. Cut as seen below: gently slice horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. Trim corners off as shown. I also cut off the pointy back part of the duckling footprint. 

Duck track cheese cutting diagram (have you ever seen one of these before, lol?!?) 

Here are some useful ingredients for making animal track snacks:
 BASE LAYER Rice cakes • Crackers • Bread slices • Pancakes • Sliced vegetables such as cucumbers
 STICKY LAYER  Cream cheese for “snow” • Peanut butter for “soil” or “mud” • Butter “sand”
 TRACKS Pretzels • Deli meats • Cheese slices • Salami • Nuts • Pieces of fruits and vegetables

Pretzel sticks, pepperoni slices, and, cheddar cheese make penguin chick, puppy, and duckling tracks.

You’ve probably noticed by now that these examples use non-sugary ingredients. But cookies, frosting, and candies could provide similar results. If you make any animal track snacks, please let me know because I would love to see what you come up with! 

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Happy reading!

Loreen Leedy
Children's author-illustrator
Instagram: @loreenleedybooks
Pinterest: @LoreenLeedy
Facebook: @authorLoreenLeedy