Foundational Math Topics
Age/Grade Levels
Content Formats
Series
Series: Book Ideas
Book ideas for using stories to infuse the early years with mathematical learning.
Series: Book Ideas
5 Kids’ Books that Involve Sets and Sorting
December 11, 2019
Children look for ways to organize and make sense of their world through play at school and home, as well as at clean-up time. Sorting items into groups by specific attributes gives children the opportunity to define sets according to a rule of what does and does not belong together.
- Topic: Sets
- Age/Grade Level: Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags family math
Series: Book Ideas August 28, 2019
5 Books and Songs for Exploring Growing Patterns
Cumulative tales and rhymes illustrate growing patterns, typically an increase or decrease by one on each page. As the growing pattern is revealed through the story, children get excited because they can figure out "what comes next."
- Topic: Pattern
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Animals, Culture, Demi, Graeme Base, Jacqueline Woodson, Lilly Hong
Series: Book Ideas July 29, 2019
Different Types of Shapes and Nonexamples to Spark Geometric Learning
It’s up to us to find, share, and talk about a variety of shapes with children in ways that expand their understanding and build connections between the shapes drawn on paper and the concrete objects in our world.
Series: Book Ideas March 24, 2019
3 Books That Encourage Simple Graph Explorations with Young Ones
At the heart of it, graphing in the early years is about quantifying information in order to answer a question. That requires children to organize data in some visible way so that comparisons and generalizations are possible.
- Topic: Data Analysis
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Comparing, Graphing
Series: Book Ideas January 11, 2019
4 Fun Books that Explore Math, Patterns, and Sequences
From an early age, children notice and appreciate patterns in the world around them. Patterns and sequences of different kinds begin to pop up all over the place, especially in the books that children love.
- Topic: Pattern
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Animals, Audrey Wood, Bill Martin Jr., Eric Carle, Trudy Harris
Series: Book Ideas October 22, 2018
A Holiday with Too Many Tamales
How is it possible to have too many tamales? Well, Maria finds out in the holiday storybook Too Many Tamales by author Gary Soto.
- Topic: Number Operations
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Books, Food, Holiday, Seasonal
Series: Book Ideas September 11, 2018
3 "Mathical" Books for More Advanced Counting
Along with being "mathical" award winners, these books provide compelling contexts that help primary grade children understand why more advanced counting is useful and that it isn’t always efficient to count by ones.
- Topic: Counting
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Kindergarten
Series: Book Ideas March 22, 2018
3 "Mathical" Counting Books with Winning Appeal
The Mathical Book Prize is an annual award organized by the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI). With an aim to "inspire a love of mathematics in the everyday world in children of all ages," the winners…
- Topic: Counting
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
Series: Book Ideas January 10, 2018
3 Children’s Books that Build an Understanding of Equivalency
Long before young children are writing equations with the equal sign, they are exploring how amounts that look different can actually be equivalent.
- Topic: Number Operations, Number Sense
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags April Pulley Sayre, Books, Ellen Stoll Walsh, Equivalence, Eve Merriam
Series: Book Ideas October 24, 2017
5 Children’s Books About Food for the Holiday Season
The holiday season usually brings with it any number of family dinners and communal feasts. For young children, this is a great time to engage in math.
- Age/Grade Level: 1st Grade, 2nd Grade, 3rd Grade, Kindergarten, Pre-K
- Tags Alison Jackson, Books, Cathryn Falwell, Dr. Seuss, Food, Gary Soto, Holiday, Seasonal, Tana Hoban
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