Kipper’s Toybox by Mick Inkpen is a picture book about a dog whose toybox has a hole in it. He dumps out the toys to try to discover what happened and he counts the toys inside. This popular children’s storybook offers many fun learning opportunities for young children to practice math and literacy concepts, including same and different, sorting, matching, and counting.
Same and different
Match all the toys that are the same (toys with ears, toys with tails, toys with no tails, toys with wings, toys with/without legs)
Sorting and matching
- Sort toys into big and little toy boxes
- 2D cut outs of main animals – match to real object
- Find the smallest and biggest toy in the toy box
- Order toys by size
Counting
- Count how many toys fit in Kipper’s toy box
- How many little toys fit in a little toy box and how many big toys fit in a little toy box?
- Weight of toy box with and without toys
- Count eyes and arms and legs on each toy
- Build a Kipper toy with head, arms and legs “twoness of two”, “oneness of one”
Shape, space and measure
- Longest and shortest animals
- How many animals fit in the toy box?
- Categorise all the “long”, “small”, “tall” toys
Literacy
- Match initial letter sound of each animal (initial letter on blank ID cards)
- Match named word card to each animal
- Role play each animal
- Role play story
- Explore and enjoy experiencing the qualities and characteristics of each animal
- Talk about feelings and looking after each other.
- Discuss how Kipper looked after all the toys in the toy box.
