We love printable books around here, what about you? Here’s a free printable bat emergent reader that’s perfect for a preschool bat theme.
You can grab your own bat book at the bottom of this post.
Related: Halloween Activities for Preschoolers
Printable Bat Book for Preschool
I mentioned above that this printable book is great to include as part of your next bat theme. And it definitely is!
You can also use it around Halloween or if you have students who are fascinated with bats.
Or use it when you want to work on early math skills with your kids. It’s a nice addition to all of your favorite math activities for preschoolers.
Related: Simple Bat Craft for Kids
Materials You’ll Need
You’ll definitely need a printer and a stapler for using the printable bat readers.
Depending on how you choose to use the bat books, you’ll also likely need a laminator or dry erase pockets.
And of course you’ll need some kind of bat-themed manipulatives. Don’t worry, they don’t have to be fancy!
You can use black or brown pompoms, buttons, Unifix Cubes, Lego bricks, or play dough.
You can even make your own using pasta, like we did for our Stellaluna activity.
How to Dye Pasta to Make Bats
- Place bow tie pasta in a plastic baggie or a reusable container with a lid.
- Squirt black liquid watercolor onto the bow tie pasta.
- Seal the baggie or container.
- Shake to disperse the liquid watercolor.
- Place the bat pasta out to dry.
Related: Free Printable Spider Counting Book
How to Assemble the Bat Emergent Reader
First, grab your own copy of the free printable bat book at the very bottom of this post.
Once you have it downloaded to your computer, be sure to open it in the most up-to-date version of Adobe Reader. If you open it in the web preview, or with other PDF readers, you’ll likely run into some printing issues.
Then it’s time to decide which printable bat book you’d like to use with your students. There are a few choices available. Print out your favorite.
To assemble the book, fold all of the pages in half with the printed sides facing out. Pull the page apart, arrange them in the correct order, and then staple the pages together on the left-hand side.
Video Tutorial for Assembling Emergent Readers
Watch this quick video that shows how to assemble the printable book. It honestly takes longer to type out the directions than it does to assemble the book.
I prefer to just fold, arrange, and staple. You can cut the pages in half before stapling if you prefer.
How to Use the Counting Bats Emergent Reader
One of the things that I love about making books with kids is the versatility of the printable readers.
You can use the printable bat readers in a variety of ways, based on your own preference and your students’ needs.
Introduce One-to-One Correspondence
The bat emergent reader is great for letting children explore early literacy skills while they learn more about one-to-one correspondence.
Print and assemble the version of the bat book that already has the bats on each page.
Point to the words on the page as you show the book to your students.
Next, have the children use your chosen bat manipulatives to cover each bat on the page.
Be sure to encourage your students to touch each bat as they go back and count.
As the children work through their bat readers, they will have so many chances to explore one-to-one correspondence.
Practice Early Math Skills
In addition to introducing early math skills, the printable bat books can also be used during guided practice of these skills.
This would be great to do during small group time in your classroom.
Print and assemble the black-and-white bat books for each of your students.
Call a small group over to you and introduce the book. “We’re going to make a book about flying bats today! You get to be the illustrators.”
Point and read the words on the first page. Then have the kids add their own illustrations:
- They can draw the bats.
- The children can use their fingerprints to make the bats.
- They can add bat stickers to the page.
- The kids can also use dot markers to stamp bats on the pages.
Go through these steps for the remaining pages in the book. Encourage the children to touch and count each bat to double-check before moving on to the next page.
Independently Explore Counting and One-to-One
The printable bat emergent readers are also a wonderful way for children to independently practice early learning skills.
Once the kids have made their own bat books, keep them in the classroom for a while. This way the children can reread the books on their own (they can also read with you or with peers, of course).
You can also turn the bat early readers into bat-themed math mats!
Simply cut the pages apart. Then laminate them or place them in dry erase pockets.
After that, hole punch the corner of each card and place the cards on a binder ring.
Once the mats are prepped, place them in your math center. If you hole-punched the pages, you can hang them on a Command hook.
Pair the printable bat readers with bat-themed manipulatives. Your students could use bow tie pasta bats, play dough, Unifix cubes, plastic bats, small bat toys, pompoms, etc.
When your students are in the math center, they can independently practice multiple early learning skills:
- reading left to right, top to bottom
- number identification
- counting
- one-to-one correspondence
Printable Bat Emergent Reader Video
Take a look at the printable bat readers in action here:
Bat Preschool Lesson Plans
You can find a variety of done-for-you preschool teaching resources at Preschool Teacher 101.
One such resource is 200+ pages of bat-themed lesson plans already planned for you. It comes with a weekly lesson plan, daily lessons and activity explanations, center plans, book suggestions, and (many!) coordinating printables.
Save even more with The Pack from Preschool Teacher 101 – a membership group that’s focused on saving you time and supporting your teaching journey.
Your Free Printable Bat Emergent Reader
This free printable is available to members of Fun-A-Day’s free email community. If you’re not a member yet, you can join and get the emergent reader as a welcome gift.
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