Count on Feasting: Delectable Holiday Math Activities
The holidays are coming up, and usually that involves a lot of eating. This can provide plenty of opportunities to find math all around us. Problems surrounding the questions of “how many do we have," "how many do we need," "how much is enough," and "what might be too much" can lead to any number…
The Math in Learning Names
Do the children in your classroom know each other’s names? At winter break, are they still pointing to “that girl?” Doing activities in the early weeks of school that use the children’s own names will do wonders for building your classroom community. At the same time, you can be doing math—as well as literacy! For…
Intentional Teaching Comes to Life with Big Shoulders Project
Math can be intimidating for many students, because it appears to be abstract and detached from the real world. Ms. Sheila Houston is among a growing group of teachers who are attempting to individualize their lessons to connect with each students' unique interests and abilities. Ms. Houston is a first grade teacher at St. Margaret…
Concept of “Getting Bigger” in The Growing Story and Three Feet Small
The Growing Story and Three Feet Small are two wonderful picture books that address a “math all around us" question that young children find compelling. Both of these stories are built around a question: Am I getting bigger? They also offer rich possibilities for exploring two important Big Ideas of measurement: Many different attributes can…
Counting on Caps for Sale
The award winning classic children’s story Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina is not an especially mathematical story. However, it is one that preschoolers love to act out. Before beginning the dramatization, use discussion to make some connections to the children’s own lives. How many caps do they wear at a time? Just one? How…
Using Photobooks for Data Analysis
Tana Hoban and Ann Morris are both gifted children’s book authors who combine minimal text with wonderful photos that beg to be pored over again and again. Many of them are organized around ideas that call for mathematizing. For example, just the cover of Hoban’s Shapes, Shapes, Shapes or Cubes, Cones, Cylinders, and Spheres will…
The Math in Dots
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. Program participant…
All Sorts of Mitten Math
Olivia Trevino’s preschool class at Marsh Elementary School took advantage of all the winter weather to explore picture books about mittens. The Mitten by Jim Aylesworth and The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt are two delightful versions of the Scandinavian folk tale about a group of animals that try to squeeze into a boy’s lost mitten.…
What Kind of Counting Book Is It?
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. For the youngest children, look for books…
Good Books Are Good for Math
We find that one sure fire way to warm up children’s attitude towards mathematics is to build math activities and lessons out of the books they all love to read. When we start to sort through books that could be used in this way, three categories emerge. One is the concept book, which is all…