leaps and bounds: but what about when sheep cannot sleep?

When I can’t sleep, like lots of people I count sheep.

But what about sheep? What do you think they do when they cannot sleep?

Well, it just so happens that I have a counting story that tells us all about it.

Woolly the sheep could not sleep.

“I’ll go for a walk,” he thought to himself.

He wandered into a meadow where he chased…..

a butterfly until it hid behind a tall tree. There on the tree trunk were…..

a couple of ladybirds and up in the branches were…..

some wise owls. “Hoo, hoo, hoo,” they called.

Night was falling and flitting overhead was…..

a handful of bats.

Back at the tree, Woolly spotted apples.

Of course they were too high up for him to reach.

“Try climbing,” suggested the squirrels.

“I can’t,” complained Woolly. But then he noticed the ladder. With its…..

(how many?) rungs. Up he climbed - one, two, three, four…..and then off he went, munching one of the juicy apples he had plucked from the tree.

Fireflies were dancing in the air. Can you count how many?

And what about the grasshoppers that were singing in the long grass. How many of them can you spot?

(You have to look closely!)

Suddenly, with a whoosh, flashing lights zipped across the sky.

And so the story continues. Woolly is scared. He runs through the woods (jumping tulips as he goes) and finds his way into a strange house with many doors and windows. Inside one of the rooms, he finds crayons, draws pictures, cooks peas, takes a bath (with lots of bubbles) and finally, he gets into bed (having made sure to count all the stars he could see outside his bedroom window).

He lay back and began to think; he thought about his aunts and his cousins and his brothers and his sisters. What were they doing? Were they already asleep? His eyes closed…..

Woolly was fast asleep.

All that counting.