Discovering the math in old (and new) favorite children’s books

Many parents prioritize reading time with their early-elementary kids, knowing the importance of a strong literacy foundation. It’s an important life skill that impacts a child’s future success as well as fostering a life-long enjoyment of reading. A while back we offered suggestions for math in children’s books — and parents have asked for more ever since!

Giving equal time to reading and math

In our Parent Updates, DreamBox Learning often discusses math education issues and suggests activities that will foster math learning in everyday family life. Children’s literature can be a wonderful way to use your time together to enjoy both reading and math. In fact, research has suggested that students who were exposed to story-related mathematics had a higher preference and aptitude for math activities than students who weren’t.¹

Finding old, and new, favorite math stories

Look for books where math is integral to the story. And think about the math concepts your child is showing interest in learning more about — whether it’s counting, measuring, fractions, shapes, time, or money.

• One Watermelon Seed, by Celia Barker Lottridge, is a lushly-illustrated counting book that gives you opportunities to explore counting not just through the tens, but also the 100’s and even the 1,000’s, as the fruits of the original ten seeds multiply. Read it as the seasons start to change and you can build interest in getting out in the garden!
• The Mud Flat Olympics, by James Stevenson, is topical this month, and it’s a perfect example of how a math book can be as much fun as any other favorite story. It’s an engaging way to learn numeration, estimating, sorting, and classification, as the characters compete in a series of very silly games, like the All-Snail High Hurdles!
• A good problem-solving book is How Big Is A Foot?, by Rolf Myller. In it, kids explore how to measure things using non-standard units, all because the King wants to give the Queen something for her birthday. The book presents good opportunities to talk about different units of measurement and tools for measuring all kinds of objects.
• One Hungry Cat, by Joanne Rocklin, begins when Tom bakes cookies and invites friends over to share them — but then he can’t help but eat them. The story explores how to divide up different numbers of yummy things for different numbers of friends. You might end up having to bake some cookies with your kids, and then figure out how to share them, how many to eat now and save for later. Create other food fractions of your own!
• Finally, an oldie but a goodie! Dr. Seuss’s The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins is an all-time favorite. Originally written in 1938, it’s still loved by children who relate to the character’s frustration with adults who talk down to him. Populated by Dr. Seuss’s impressively quirky group of characters, it’s a deceptively simple counting book with outsized imagination.

More suggestions for math in well-loved children’s stories:

Looking for more math stories? Here are several sites we recommend:

• Several suggestions from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics
• A range of math and children’s literature choices
• The math section in Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site

Did you know?

March is a lucky month for learning activities! Print out the March Math Activities Calendar and your kids can show their incredibleness by solving a puzzle on Incredible Kid Day, add up leprechaun gold, and write a poem about their favorite number on Children’s Poetry Day. They can even figure out how long ago the world’s first basketball game was played (it was in 1892).

Math learning tips for busy parents

At DreamBox, we know parents want to be engaged with their children’s education. So, as a regular feature, we offer simple games and activities parents can do with their children during everyday family life.

Whenever you have the opportunity, model counting larger groups of objects. Point out how you tag items by moving each from one group (uncounted) to another group (counted). Talk about what you’re thinking as you group or count groups. For example, you can show your child an egg carton, explaining how each carton holds 12 eggs. Or when you get home from the grocery store, open the box of 12 catfood cans. You might explain that in order to count 3 boxes, you count ten for each box (10, 20, 30) followed by two more in each box (32, 34, 36) for a total of 36. Then you can talk about how much food you feed the kitty each day, and figure out how many boxes you’ll need to feed her for a month.