The Story about Ping by Kurt Wiese posted by Kiera Carmody

Title: The Story About Ping

Author: Kurt Wiese

Illustrator: Marjorie Flack

Recommended Grade Level: 2

Common Core Math Standards Addressed:

Reason Abstractly and Quantitatively

Model with Mathematics

Summary: Ping is a duck that lives on a boat in the Yangtze River with his mother, his father, two sisters, three brothers, eleven aunts, seven uncles, and forty two cousins. Every say they follow a routine and all march together to go fishing. There is a great deal of repetition about the order of the large family and how they followed routines.

One day, Ping is not paying attention and gets separated from the rest of his family. While trying to find his family he meets a group of fishing birds, gets captured by a small boy, is almost cooked for dinner, and finally is set free and reunited with his family.

Rating: 5. This is a classic children’s book that incorporates mathematics and teaches a lesson.

Classroom ideas: This would be an excellent text to use when beginning word problems. Ping’s family is very large. The teacher could begin by asking students to solve how many ducks are in Ping’s family in total. The teacher can also ask students to distinguish between Ping’s immediate and extended family. As an extension the teacher could ask students to make up word problems relating to their families.

For example, Mike has one sister, two brothers, two parents, six cousins, two aunts, two uncles, one grandmother, and two grandfathers. How many people live in Mike’s house?

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle posted by Anne Reidy

Title: The Grouchy Ladybug
Author: Eric Carle
Illustrator: Eric Carle
Recommended Grade Level: First and Second Grades

Common Core Mathematics Standards Addressed: Measurement and Data: Tell and write time

Summary: A ladybug approaches another ladybug at 6 in the morning and threatens to fight the ladybug but decides she is too small. The grouchy ladybug meets and challenges other animals to a fight at every hour on the hour, the clock is displayed on the page. Each bug or animal that the ladybug threatens gets bigger, as does the typeface of the text. You can also watch the sun rise and fall in the sky over time.

Rating:Excellent book. The illustrations are beautiful, the storyline is very funny and children enjoy the ladybug thinking it's a big animal.

Classroom Ideas: The children could hold manipulative clocks while the story is being read and they could change the time on their clocks to be line with the story line. Younger children could talk about the comparisons of big and small, between the sizes of the creatures shown in the book.

Just Enough Carrots, Posted by Nicole Zippo

Title: Just Enough Carrots

Author: Stuart J. Murphy

Illustrator: Frank Remkiewicz

Recommended Grade Level: K-2

Common Core Mathematics Standards Addressed: Counting and Cardinality Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Measurement and Data

Summary: This story is about a young rabbit that goes grocery shopping with his mother one day. While in the store, he begins to take notice of what is going into their shopping cart compared to some of the other shopper’s carts. He wants mom to buy more of what he likes, and less of what he doesn’t like. More carrots please! What young rabbit doesn’t know is that mom is shopping for a fun surprise when they get back home!

Rating: ***** I highly recommend this book. It has bright, vivid illustrations that young students find attractive. The pictures are labeled with the words fewer, same and more, giving visual learners something to help connect concepts. I thought this book did a really great job of using a storyline that makes math concepts relatable to everyday life. Plenty of children go shopping with mom and dad, grandma and grandpa or whoever the head of the household is. This was a great way for kids to apply math to their real life activity.

Classroom Ideas: This book could be used in the classroom in a few different ways. Mathematical topics include addition, subtraction, counting, comparing, and sorting depending on which grade level you use the story in. Students could use manipulatives to follow along with the number of grocery items rabbit and his mother buy at the store. Students can also use manipulatives to show their own ways to show more, less, and the same and how we know that it is true that one number can be more than, less than, or the same as another number. Students can use addition/subtraction sentences to show how we make more or less of something and create their own shopping cart with a different number of each item to compare.

Full House: from Maggie Morales

Title: Full House: An Invitation to Fractions

Author: Dayle Ann Dodds

Illustrated by: Abby Carter

Recommended Grade Level: Grade 3

Common Core Mathematics Standards:

Develop understanding of fractions as numbers.

· 3.NF.1. Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into bequal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.

· 3.NF.2. Understand a fraction as a number on the number line; represent fractions on a number line diagram.

o Represent a fraction 1/b on a number line diagram by defining the interval from 0 to 1 as the whole and partitioning it into b equal parts. Recognize that each part has size 1/b and that the endpoint of the part based at 0 locates the number 1/b on the number line.

o Represent a fraction a/b on a number line diagram by marking off a lengths 1/b from 0. Recognize that the resulting interval has size a/b and that its endpoint locates the numbera/b on the number line.

· 3.NF.3. Explain equivalence of fractions in special cases, and compare fractions by reasoning about their size.

o Understand two fractions as equivalent (equal) if they are the same size, or the same point on a number line.

o Recognize and generate simple equivalent fractions, e.g., 1/2 = 2/4, 4/6 = 2/3). Explain why the fractions are equivalent, e.g., by using a visual fraction model.

o Express whole numbers as fractions, and recognize fractions that are equivalent to whole numbers. Examples: Express 3 in the form 3 = 3/1; recognize that 6/1 = 6; locate 4/4 and 1 at the same point of a number line diagram.

o Compare two fractions with the same numerator or the same denominator by reasoning about their size. Recognize that comparisons are valid only when the two fractions refer to the same whole. Record the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, or <, and justify the conclusions, e.g., by using a visual fraction model.

Summary: This story is about how Miss Bloom welcomes visitors in her inn until all the rooms are taken. However, in the middle of the night she hears strange noise and it so happens that the guests are all taking turns eating from the strawberry cake she made for desert and forgot to offer her guests.

Rating: This book has 3 1/2 stars and editorial reviews state that it’s a good book for teaching children who are beginning to learn fractions because in the right hand corner of each page she illustrates what part of the inn is being occupied at the time. To make it a better successful book the ending of the story recaps the lesson on fractions as all her visitors enjoy her strawberry cake. I enjoyed reading this book to my children because I enjoyed the characters in it. My children said it was a funny and interesting way to introduce fractions.

Classroom Ideas:

ü Before introducing this book to the class the teacher can break the ice by bringing the students together as a group and talk about pizza and how many slices come in a pie?(This will make them use their prior knowledge of the subject at hand)

ü As groups give them manipulative's that they can use to show the difference between a small, medium and large pie of pizza.

ü Homework can include problem solving questions based on the introduced book or on pizza. For example if I bought the class four large pizzas and each contain 8 slices of pizza. How many slices can each get if there are only 12 of you in the class?

ü As an extension for students who can go forward you can ask will there be any left over’s and if so how many?

Bigger, Better, Best. from Lauren Migliarini

Title: Bigger, Better, Best

Author: Stuart J. Murphy

Illustrator: Marsha Winborn

Recommended

Grade Level: 2

Common Core Mathematics Standards Addressed:

2.PS.1 Explore, examine, and make observations about a social problem or mathematical situation

2.PS.2 Interpret information correctly, identify the problem, and generate possible solutions

2.PS.3 Act out or model with manipulatives activities involving mathematical content from literature and/or story telling

2.PS.4 Formulate problems and solutions from everyday situations (e.g., counting the number of children in the class, using the calendar to teach counting).

2.CM.3 Share mathematical ideas through the manipulation of objects, drawings, pictures, charts, and symbols in both written and verbal explanations

2.CN.1 Recognize the connections of patterns in their everyday experiences to mathematical ideas

2.CN.4 Understand how models of situations involving objects, pictures, and symbols relate to mathematical ideas

22.CN.6 Understand how mathematical models represent quantitative relationships

2.CN.8 Recognize and apply mathematics to solve problems

2.G.2 Identify and appropriately name two-dimensional shapes: circle, square, rectangle, and triangle (both regular and irregular)

2.M.1 Use non-standard and standard units to measure both vertical and horizontal lengths

2.M.10 Select and use standard (customary) and non-standard units to estimate measurements

Summary: Siblings, Jenny and Jeff are always arguing over who has the biggest or best of anything and everything; so much so that it is driving their younger sister Jill crazy. On the day when their parents announce they are moving to a new home, the arguing over who’s room will be the largest begins. When they visit the new home mom decides to put an end to the arguing by giving the siblings equal size sections of paper so they can determine the size of the area in each room. While rooms are different shapes the children determine that they are equal sizes, except for Jill’s whose is smaller but she is happiest because she is farthest from her arguing siblings.

Rating: This book has great ideas for introducing the concept of area. Some of the sidebar bickering between siblings is distracting but can be left out/minimized by the reader if being read out loud. I think that this book can be very effectively added into lesson planning on the area of objects.

Classroom Ideas:

- Discuss ‘Area’; ‘how much space something has’. Do things need to be the same shape to figure out which is bigger or smaller?

- Using small squares (maybe post-its) students can use the same method to measure different shaped books or other items in the classroom.

- Homework could include measuring TV screens or dinning room tables.

- Transfer the idea to liquid measurement using a short glass and a tall but thin glass.

- Discuss ways to measure items that are already laid out in a standard measure: ceiling tiles or floor tiles.

It's About Time!

Title: It's About Time!

Author: Stuart J. Murphy

Illustrator: John Speirs

Recommended Grade Level: 1- 2

Common Core Mathematics Standards Addressed: 1.MD.3. Tell and write time in hours using analog and digital clocks.
Summary: This is a short story about the everyday life of a small boy who tells what he does every hour. In the story, the boy can't sleep during the whole night. He spends the night having fun with shadows and monsters until it's time to get up and start another day. The book tells what is happening in one sentence , and shows both digital and analog clock faces.
Rating: ***** I recommend this book because it helps learning to tell the time to the nearest hour and gaining understanding of a elapsed time.

Classroom ideas: This book could be used to explain to the children that a day has 24 hours and introduce to them midnight AM and PM hours as well as midnight and Noon time division.
With this book we can also explain the children the differences between analog and digital clocks. We can have an analog clock as we read the story so the children can move the hands on the clock face to correspond to the times in the story.
As a follow up activity we can make a collage finding pictures in magazines that show different clocks and different times. Children can circle each clock that shows the time on the hour.

The Greedy Triangle - Posted by Alina Jackson

Title: The Greedy Triangle

Author: Marilyn Burns

Illustrator: Gordon Silveria

Recommended Grade Level: K-3

Common Core Mathematics Standards Addressed: Geometry, reason with shapes and their attributes, problem solving.

Summary: This story is about a triangle who isn't happy with his current shape and wants to be a different shape. In the story, the triangle goes to the shapeshifter and makes his first request of adding one more side and one more angle, which turned him into a quadrilateral. As the story continues the triangle is changed to many different shapes.


Rating: ***** I highly recommend this book because it explains how geometry works. It allows students to connect the meanings of shapes by showing examples of how each shape looks in the real world.

Classroom ideas: This book could be used to introduce geometric shapes. Students could use shapes in the classroom to identify some of the shapes from the book. Students could cut out a triangle and then cut out other angles to add to the triangle to form different geometric shapes. You could also ask the students to describe their favorite shape and explain how many sides their shape has and what would their shape turn into if another angle and side were added to it.