Teaching Math With Favorite Picture Books

Provides literature-based activities for teaching math to students in grades one through three, each with activities, reproducible patterns, and recording sheets.

Math lessons based on popular books that connect to the standards and build skills in problem solving and critical thinking.

Cats are out for a night on the town in this lively picture book about counting, dance, and music from Carline Stutson and Caldecott medalist Jon Klassen. From two cats waltzing to twenty cats in a conga line, dancing felines take to the streets, the fire escapes, and the rooftops in this charming concept picture book that is part counting and part introduction to music, dance, and rhythm. The short rhyming text makes it a perfect read-aloud treat, and with vivid illustrations from a breakout DreamWorks animator, readers and listeners alike will be thrilled to see what happens one night on Easy Street when a pair of cats start to groove to the beat.

This book's 50-plus lessons-each based on a different picture book or story-will help classroom teachers build a foundation for teaching math, science, and social studies concepts to their students. Each lesson uses children's literature to make challenging, abstract concepts relevant to children's lives, inviting them to learn these concepts while responding to a story's illustrations, theme, characters, and plot. The lessons also demonstrate how teachers can use children's literature to meet national standards in math, science, and social studies. Chapters 1 through 5 set the stage for using picture books, discussing the effective, imaginative integration of literature into the classroom. Teachers will learn to create an environment that ensures that when children and books come together, the experience is enjoyable and thought provoking. Chapters 6 through 9 provide individual lessons, by grade level, with detailed activities based on specific books.

How do you approach a math problem that challenges you? Do you keep trying until you reach a solution? Or are you like Amy, who gets frustrated easily and gives up? Amy is usually a happy and enthusiastic student in grade five who loves to dance, but she is struggling with a tough math assignment. She doesn’t think she is good at math because her classmates always get the answers faster than she does and sometimes she uses her fingers to help her count. Even though her mom tries to help her, Amy is convinced she just cannot do math. She decides not to do the assignment at all since she thinks she wouldn’t do well anyway. As Amy goes about her day, her experiences at ballet class, the playground, and gym class have her thinking back to how she gave up on her math assignment. She starts to notice that hard-work, practice, and dedication lead to success, thanks to her friends and teachers. She soon comes to understand that learning math is no different than learning any other skill in life. With some extra encouragement from her math teacher, a little help from her mom, and a new attitude, Amy realizes that she can do math!

Amanda loves to count everything, but not until she has an amazing dream does she finally realize that being able to multiply will help her count things faster.

Explains how to use fifteen science-based picture books to teach students in grades one through three the basic fundamentals of science; includes reproducibles and easy activities.

This tale of ants parading toward a picnic is “one of those rare gems capable of entertaining while it instructs” (Middlesex News). One hundred hungry ants march off single file to sample a picnic, but when the going gets too slow, they divide into two rows of fifty, then four rows of twenty-five . . . until they take so long that the picnic is gone! “The unexpected pairing of sophisticated art and light-hearted text lends this book particular distinction.” —Publishers Weekly “The illustrations . . . use a pleasing palette and energetic lines to depict ants with highly individual characters.” —Horn Book