Origin

Little Blue Ben is another Mother Goose rhyme. I originally had the words exactly as Mother Goose wrote them.

Little Blue Ben, lives in the glen,
Keeps a blue cat and a blue hen,
That lays of blue eggs a score and ten.
Where shall I find the little blue Ben?

A score and ten sounded like a lot of eggs to me so I thought I’d make up a silly picture story about what she did with all those eggs. My editor at Scholastic suggested that I add a few more sentences to go with them. And I did.

Activities

Activity #1: Have students draw a picture and hide things in it. How many things are hidden?

Activity #2: Place cut out blue paper eggs in a basket (or dyed real ones). There are many possible ways to use this:

• Add and subtract eggs.
• Estimate how many are in the basket.
• Using two baskets, which has more or less?
• Sorting using eggs of different size or colour.

Activity #3: Compile a class cookbook having students invent recipes for blue eggs.

Activity #4: Rhyming words are written on paper cut-out eggs. Children sort the words that rhyme into the appropriate baskets.