Kindergarten Reading Activity with Modifications

How many balloons are too many balloons? Well, one of my favorite children’s books is   Too Many Balloons by Catherine Matthias.  It is simple and repetitive and really cute.  It is a great supplement to our free online reading program because it contains many color and number words.   Kindergarten Reading Activity with Modifications for several levels. Can work for preschool through second grade!

Anyway, I love the book so much I decided to do a Too Many Balloons kindergarten guided reading activity with my own children.  I have 5 children – the oldest was 8 years old, and the youngest to participate in the activity was 2.  The big age span meant that in order to the activity, I would have to modify the activity so all the children would feel challenged.  I am a special education teacher by training, so I love to make modifications!

Too Many Balloons by Catherine Matthias is a fantastic book for preschool and kindergarten children.  The book teaches and reinforces colors, numbers, and animals.  You can do a math activity with it, you can do a reading activity with it, you can do a Spanish activity with it, you can even do science activities with it.  It is so flexible and easy to modify to fit any child or lesson plan.  I definitely encourage you to look for it in your local library, it is well worth it.

I geared the Too Many Balloons activity to be for the kindergarten age, but it is easily modified for toddler, preschooler, and even a second grader!  The first thing we did was read the book together.  I had my second grader read the book first to everyone.

 Kindergarten reading activity with modifications. Great for special needs, a classroom or homeschool!

My kindergarten student went next, and then my preschooler read the book.  That is another great thing about Too Many Balloons -it is a great companion book for Mrs. Karle’s learn to read for free program!  Mrs. Karle starts by teaching color and number words for the children and Too Many Balloons has many color and number words so children who are about day 10 in the program can already read this book!

After reading the book, I passed out the activity sheets.  The sheets correspond with each page in the book, so if the girl purchases 1 red balloon for the lion, the children get to give the lion one red balloon.  We used little colored stickers (like the ones you use for garage sales) as our balloons.  The two and four year olds got great practice with fine motor and taking off the stickers and with coloring the little round circles.  The four year old had a great time reading the color and number words and matching them with the correct animals.  The kindergarten student also did a great job reading and matching and counting all the balloons.  My second grader really enjoyed helping with the activity.  As an extra challenge, we read Too Many Balloons in Spanish!  She also counted all the balloons in the book to figure out just exactly how many balloons were too many.  One day we hope to do a science experiment…  how many balloons are too many?Kindergarten reading activity with modifications. Great for special needs, a classroom or homeschool!

Kindergarten reading activity with modifications. Great for special needs, a classroom or homeschool!

Kindergarten reading activity with modifications. Great for special needs, a classroom or homeschool!

I highly encourage you to check out the book Too Many Balloons by Catherine Matthias.  There are so many ways you can modify the book to work for your classroom or homeschool.  After you read the book, do this fun activity!  To get this fun free book activity, enter your email into the form below.  You will be added to our mailing list where you will find out about more fun things!

 

Kindergarten reading activity with modifications. Great for special needs, a classroom or homeschool!
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Madreen Karle is a master first grade reading teacher with over 30 years of classroom experience. She taught reading in a special needs and English as a Second Language classroom. After retiring she wrote a reading program to help others learn how to teach reading. She is a trusted educator and author of 5 books to help teach children to read and write. In addition to her books, she is a mentor for 3 websites that give reading teacher tips (Mrs. Karle’s Sight and Sound ReadingMrs. Karle’s Reading Patch, and Mrs. Karle’s Handwriting Patch). Through her teaching she learned that confidence was the key to learning to read. A child who is not confident at reading does not like to read and struggles to read. Mrs. Karle created “sunshine moments” to help teach children how to grow their confidence and learn to read.
Meeghan Karle Mousaw (Madreen’s daughter) has her Master’s in Special Education. She has 8 years experience teaching children to read online. In addition, she developed a curriculum to teach children handwriting called The Handwriting Patch. With the Handwriting Patch learning is fun because children learn to draw and learn handwriting at the same time. In 2019 The Handwriting Patch curriculum became an amazon best seller the first year it was released, helping thousands of kids learn handwriting with a unique, fun method. She is mom to 6 kids, each with differently learning abilities and struggles.
The Reading Patch was established by the creators of Mrs. Karle’s Sight and Sound Reading. Together they have been featured on the NBC media outlets and Parents Magazine online. Over the last 8 years in their online platform, Madreen and Meeghan have worked tirelessly with teachers, homeschoolers and parents looking to help children learn to read to become a trusted authority in teaching children to read and advocating early literacy skills. They often partner with other educational experts to deliver the most current information to the Reading Patch community.

11 Comments

  1. Michelle Westbrook says:

    I am stopping by from the Bloggers Brags Pinterest Party 🙂 I am always looking for fun activities to do with my niece and nephew when they come for a visit. Thanks for sharing this!

  2. This is great! Thanks so much for all you do and helping our kids learn to read for free!

    1. You are welcome! As Mrs. Karle says… it is a labor of love. Thanks for visiting Sight and Sound Reading!

  3. Another great resource! I love that it incorporates counting, and that it is available in Spanish too!

  4. What an awesome reading tool …thanks so much for helping to make what can be a daunting task that much easier and fun!

  5. Catherine Matthias says:

    Thank you for loving my book and for using it to the max! You’ve done everything I’d hoped parents and teachers would do with it when I wrote it. Great energy and ingenuity on your part. Big smiles to you and your children.

    1. Oh my goodness gracious! We love your book! So happy you stopped by to see the lesson plans for it. 🙂 I am hoping a lot of teachers discover the because it is a great book for teaching colors, numbers and zoo animals!

  6. Hello from the author again. I want to tell you about another book I’ve written that was published in 2021 by Square One Publishers. It is a nonfiction book for anyone who works with children who are struggling to read due to Irlen Syndrome, a little know condition that causes symptoms in 1 in 6 people throughout the world. It is titled THE WORD GOBBLERS. About one third of children who are diagnosed with dyslexia do not have dyslexia, they have Irlen Syndrome. Another third have both dyslexia and Irlen, making life doubly difficult when it comes to reading, including music, math, and depth perception. I hope you’ll check it out and pass the word for me and all those who struggle with this condition. Thank you.

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