When I was little, my friends and I all had a sticker collection.  Lisa Frank was a hot commodity!  We would pretty much show and tell this collection, and sometimes trade.  But there are so many ways to make use of stickers – more than just maintaining a shelf life.

If you read “Join The Club” then you may remember that I was inspired to write up some sticker activity ideas for you to use what you already have to create fun and meaningful teaching opportunities.  Below are the ideas that came to mind, but feel free to share pictures on my facebook page of any sticker creations your little ones have designed 🙂

Use stickers:

1)      To check off chores accomplished using a chore chart. (This can teach responsibility & show data represented on a chart.)

2)      To mark important days on a calendar. (This can teach calendar skills & how to read information from a table.)

3)      To award positive behavior or to award children for each full serving of fruits & veggies your child eats at dinner. After a certain number maybe they can “rent a new movie” “bring a friend bowling” or some other fun incentive. (This  teaches number sense & goal setting.)

4)      To make patterns on paper strips that can be used to tape around your little one’s wrist or ankle to make a bracelet or anklet. [This can teach patterning and classifying (depending on how your little one chooses to make a pattern….by shape such as star-circle-star-circle, by color such as is pictured, by object such as horse-cat-horse-cat, etc.)]

5)      To make a sticker book of stories using the stickers in place of some of the words.  So for example if you have number stickers & animal stickers you might help your little one come up with something like this:  “(1) little (horse sticker) was galloping down the road, to meet (2) little (cat stickers) that were chasing a toad.” (This can teach math, reading, and creative writing skills.)

6)      To organize a sticker collection (place the stickers in sheet protectors and place in a binder by groups with divider tabs such as letters, shapes, animals, colors, scratch and sniff, etc.) (This can teach organization, classifying, sorting, and matching skills.)

7)      To represent characters in math stories (This can teach conservation of a number, number sense, counting, and adding.)

Hope this helps you to use what you have to create teaching opps…please share your stories!