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

Making Animal Tracks Step by Step

If you're planning baby animal, nature, or habitat themes for primary kids in your classroom or library, my new nonfiction picture book Step by Step will come in handy. The book starts with pages full of muddy paw prints and the question, "Who walks in the mud?” When young readers turn the page they'll find the answer (a puppy.)

A puppy walks in the mud, that’s who! 

The next page asks, “Who waddles to the pond?”  It turns out to be a mallard duckling. The simple pattern of the text combined with realistic illustrations make it an ideal informational text for Preschool to Grade 1 readers (or readers-in-training.) It works well as a read aloud and for individual perusal. The back matter includes additional facts for kids to discover.

The book's first review has already come in and is very positive (whew!):
“...The simple, patterned presentation neatly imparts multifaceted information, and a handy, succinct addendum will encourage second and third views. Effortlessly enlightening.” Kirkus Reviews

I'm super excited that a board book edition of Step by Step for babies and toddlers will also be available. Though I've been in the children's book biz since 1984, this is my very FIRST board book. The official publication date is in May.

Let's brainstorm a few ways to use this book, shall we?
 THEMES
 • baby animals and their names
 • animal tracks
 • nature
 • habitats
 • doing things “step by step”

CONTENT
 • tracks • footprint • paw print • toes • claw • walk • waddle • crawl • run • hop • dig • mud • sand • snow • mammal • bird • reptile • invertebrate • insect • crab • birth • hatch • egg • baby • grow

ACTIVITY IDEAS
 • Whose Tracks are These? Cut sponges into animal footprint shapes, glue to corregated cardboard, then print tracks with paint. Draw a picture of the animal that corresponds to the tracks.
 • Who’s Making Tracks? Trace around feet on construction paper, cut out and make tracks leading to each child’s picture on a bulletin board.
 • We Learn Step by Step: bulletin board promoting perseverance, grit, staying on task.

For FREE printable activity pages that tie in directly, please click on the image below to pick them up in my TPT shop:

Click here to view the Step by Step activity pages

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you'll come back for more posts about children's books, classroom activities, educational resources, and freebies! >> Please subscribe on the blog sidebar if you get a chance>>>

Happy reading!

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