(Vol. 3, Issue 2, February 2012) Melinda Chum is one of many teachers who have found great ways to do math with Donald Crews’ wonderful picture book 10 Black Dots. Children love going through the pages, exploring how 2 black dots form the eyes on a fox or 4 black dots can be seen as the tires on a vehicle.

(Vol. 2, Issue 3, December 2010) There’s nothing like a stack of attractive counting books to help young children explore number. However, it’s worth taking the time to analyze exactly how the numbers in the book are put to work, so as the children’s number sense grows, they can play with more complex understandings.

(Vol. 2, Issue 3, December 2010) Teachers who go home from our Learning Lab with Anno’s Counting Book immediately put it to use to get their students exploring “how many?” After reading Anno’s, Nancy Beza at Waters encouraged her preschoolers to make a list of objects that could be found in a winter scene—snowflakes, trees, etc.

Seminar teachers Rosa Urrutia and Katie Schneider created a fantastic poster about a math activity featuring the book The First Day of Winter.

This charming tale by Denise Fleming (Henry Holt and Company, 2005) is the perfect book for any wintry day—and a fun way to introduce a lot of important mathematical ideas.