Infuse
Mathematical Thinking into Your Classroom Library: My Favorite
Children’s Literature to use in the Math Workshop
Sarah Picard
Some
of my favorite books to real aloud to first and second graders
involve number concepts. I have listed a few of my favorites below.
Two
of Everything by Lily Toy Hong
Two
of Everything by Lily Toy Hong helps children understand
the concept of doubling. In this folktale, Mr. and Mrs. Haktak
use a lucky pot to double their meager earnings. Whatever they
put into the pot gets doubled. Students can investigate and predict
the earning as the teachers reads it aloud. They will be cheering
the Haktaks along until the moment when Mrs. Haktak falls into
the pot herself and two Mrs. Haktaks emerge. Teachers and children
alike delight in Mr. Haktak’s solution to this very unique
problem.
Ms.
Rhumphius by:Barbara Cooney
The Giving Tree by: Shel Silverstein
Both of these
popular children’s books teach children about the passage
of time. Barbara Cooney’s book chronicles the life of Miss
Rhumphis and Shel Silverstein’s pictures and narrative follow
the life of a tree. The illustrations and text teach children
about the concept of days, weeks, years, and the affect of the
passing of time. These stories helped my students understand why
we kept a calendar in the classroom – to look forward on
our days, weeks, and months together, and to look back on all
we had accomplished in a year.
Emily’s
First 100 Days of School by: Rosemary Wells
Beloved children’s
author Rosemary Wells sets kids and teachers up for the count
up to the 100th day of school with this book. Many teachers use
this book during the first week of school to get the students
thinking about the concept of numbers. The main character Emily,
and her classmates, think about ways each number can be used in
the word (on their third day of school Emily writes to her teacher
that she noticed her school bus is No. 3, on the fourth day of
school she learns about the four corners in square dancing). You
can take this book out again and again throughout the year. Celebrate
the 100th day of school and remind the children of all numbers
they have seen in the world.
Math
Curse by John Scieszka
This book
pushes some of our older mathematicians to think like the teacher
in the book, Mrs. Fibonnaci. She tells her students, “You
know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.”
What follows are pages and pages of math problems the narrator
creates as he goes about his day as a student in her class. This
book will stretch your brain and give all kids a chance to see
how numbers are used ever single day in the world. |