Ideas for using math-related books for creative early math curriculum.
January 20, 2015
Teachers in the Innovations Project have been making use of the Contexts for Learning Investigations, a series of mini-lessons, games, and storybooks based around overarching math learning goals. The developers of this series argue that math time should be an active and creative process, allowing students to learn through experimentation and exploration.
In this video, students brainstorm ways to sort their shoes. Later, they graphically organize the data from the sets they created.
The Biggest Pumpkin Ever by Steven Kroll and A Pig is Big by Douglas Florian are two children's story books that present opportunities for children to explore the mathematical concept of measurement, particularly the Big…
In this video, students explore spatial relationships by describing and traversing an obstacle course, then making a map of it.
Children like big numbers! Often before they can say all the numbers from one to one hundred reliably, children understand that one hundred is a lot. They quickly learn that one thousand is even more…
The Growing Story and Three Feet Small are two wonderful picture books that address a “math all around us" concept: growing taller.
The award winning classic children’s story Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina is one that preschoolers love to act out. Using discussion to make some connections to the children’s own lives, and to math, can…
Teachers encourage children to describe the pattern in a favorite story book.
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…
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…