Mr. Crow's Pebble Collection - Discriminating Sizes, Matching, Same and Different, One-to-one Correspondence, Cause and Effect, Discriminating Colours

Insert objects into different containers to see if it fits and they like to play with water.

Prepare pebbles and bottles of different sizes to let children put pebbles in.

Mr. Crow wants to keep his pebbles in the bottles. Help him keep his pebbles by organize them. Using your beak, put the big pebbles into the bottle with the big mouth and put the small pebbles into the bottle with the small mouth.

Make crow puppets with the children. Make sure the hand is slot in to move the crow puppet's beak. Then provide some pebbles of different sizes, big and small, and 2 bottles with different size mouths, a bottle with a big mouth and a bottle with a small mouth. Get the children to sort and insert the pebbles into the correct bottle with their crow puppet on.

Describing
- How are you going to pick up the pebble with your beak?
- How do you put the pebbles into the bottle?

Recording
- On a piece of paper, draw a picture of a big bottle and a small bottle. Then, draw how
   many pebbles you had put into the bottles.
- Where should we put Mr. Crow's bottles now?

Reasoning
- Could you put bigger pebbles into the smaller bottle?
- Why do you think Mr. Crow would like to keep his pebbles by their sizes?
- What would happen if the pebbles went into the wrong bottle?

Opening Out
- What other things could you put into the bottles?
- What would you do when Mr. Crow has too many pebbles to keep?

Discriminating Sizes
- Comparing and sorting the size of the pebbles.
- Comparing and sorting the size of the bottle mouths.

Matching
- Putting the small pebbles into the bottle with the small mouth.
- Putting the big pebbles into the bottle with the big mouth.

Same and Different
- Sorting the pebbles to the same size.
- Making sure the different sized pebbles do not go into the wrong bottle.

One-to-one Correspondence
- Putting the pebbles into the bottles one by one.

Cause and Effect
- Learning that if you put pebbles into the bottle, the water level will rise.

Discriminating Colours
- Sorting different colour pebbles into the same colour bottles.

Development of the Activity

Start by telling the story of The Crow and The Pitcher. After the story telling, introduce the crow by making crow hand puppets with the children. Then, introduce the pebbles and bottles to the children and show them the comparison of the sizes of the objects. Questions are asked to further enhance the children's understanding of the sizes big and small.

The children are then provided a setting where they can play with their crow puppets and experiment with different sizes of pebbles and bottles. The children are given the freedom to put the pebbles into the different bottles. 

Some children would neatly sort the pebbles and put them into their respective bottles (Big pebbles into the big moth bottle and small pebbles into the small mouth bottle). On the other hand, some children would begin mixing the pebbles into the different bottles. When the children mix the pebbles, they might force the pebbles into the bottle mouth, so it is best to use plastic bottles. They are easy to cut open if the pebbles got stuck inside, and they don't crack or break as easily as grass bottles.

After the children get the idea of sorting the pebbles by sizes, the adults will empty the bottles and add in some water into all the bottles. Then the sorting activity is repeated with the children. This time, the catch is to not let the water overflow out of the bottles when inserting the pebble. When the bottle is full, get the children to try pouring out the water without dropping the pebbles from the bottles.

At the end of the lesson, the children are required to draw the pebbles they have put into the bottles on a piece of paper.

Variation of the Activity

1. For children who are more advanced and children who are able to complete this activity with ease, provide more than 2 bottles of different mouth sizes and more than 2 sizes of pebbles.
2. Use pebbles and bottles of different colours to sort the pebbles into the same coloured bottles.

Aesop's The Crow and The Pitcher by Stephanie Gwyn Brown

A Crow, half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it, and that he could not reach far enough down to get at it. He tried, and he tried, but at last had to give up in despair. Then a thought came to him, and he took a pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped it into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. Then he took another pebble and dropped that into the Pitcher. At last, at last, he saw the water mount up near him, and after casting in a few more pebbles he was able to quench his thirst and save his life.

Story retrieved from Aesop's Fables

For each child, you will need:
1 crow puppet
1 big mouth plastic bottle
1 small mouth plastic bottle
10 big pebbles
10 small pebbles
Pebbles of different colour
Some plain paper
Drawing instruments