Children's Books approx. Ages 5 - 10
The Secret Life Of Math: Discover How (and Why) Numbers Have Survived From the Cave Dwellers to Us!
by Ann McCallum
Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein
(Blue Ribbon Nonfiction Book) Award by Don Brown
Ages 4 to 8 and older of course if you have picture book lovers
Mummy Math: An Adventure in Geometry
by Cindy Neuschwander, Bryan Langdo
Ages 5 - 10 and older for picture book lovers
What's Your Angle, Pythagoras? A Math Adventure
by Julie Ellis
Ages 6 to 10 and older
Senefer: A Young Genius in Old Egypt (Young Readers)
by Beatrice Lumpkin
Ages 4 to 10
Mathematickles!
by Betsy Franco
How Far is Far?
by Alvin Tresselt (out of print) Ages 4 to 8 and older for picture book lovers
The Wonderful World of Mathematics: A Critically Annotated List of Children's Books in Mathematics
Not a picture book, parent resource, see review
Math Book Review Links......Gnarly math book reviews....Charlotte Mason book reviews
The Secret Life Of Math: Discover How (and Why) Numbers Have Survived From the Cave Dwellers to Us! by Ann McCallum
Someone alerted me to this book published fairly recently, after I taught co-op classes and wrote lesson plans on early mathematics history. It is different than the primary readers I suggested for elementary kids for math history and is an outstanding resource. The History of Counting
and From Zero to Ten: The Story of Numbers
both tell the story of counting and number in a story-like way. "The Secret Life of Math" is more of an informational book, but the text is written in a kid-friendly tone. It is more readable than Joy Hakim's Story of Science, for those of you who have used that resource.
There are lots of insets, suggestions for activities, and really nice photographs of things like tally bones, tokens, quipus, of which the only good sources I could find a few years back were some out of print books or the internet.
It is arranged in three main sections: Keeping Track: How Humans Invented Methods; Writing It Down: Toward A Universal Language; and Faster Figuring: Knowing More - Sooner! Each section has chapters ranging from Hatch Marks, "Digit" Counting, Knots and Numbers, Roman Numerals, going from pebbles to symbols, cunieform, hieroglyphics, Zero, and the abacus, among others.
It is FULL of activities, is over 100 pages long, and is really a good value for one book. The layout is very attractive, colorful but not overly busy (in my opinion, I don't care for really busy books, although my kids sometimes do :o)
This one isn't as much for younger children as something like From Zero to Ten, I'd say generally age 8 on up, although your mileage may vary, some kids can handle things younger, some older, but I find this attractive myself, and can see it as a valuable family resource for a wide age range.
Julie Brennan
Mummy Math : An Adventure in Geometry by Cindy Neuschwander (back to top)
Ages 5 - 10 and older for picture book lovers. Cindy Neuschwander writes the Sir Circumference books so I checked this one out. Turns out I don't like to read it aloud (it reads very much like a script to a Cyberchase episode), but that's no problem, my 9 y/old happily read it to his sisters. They love Cyberchase, so the language fit his taste wonderfully. Amazon has it for 9 to 12, but that's inaccurate imo.
It's about geometric solids, and follows the adventures of a couple kids and their dog through an Egyptian pyramid following clues based on these shapes. Cindy includes notes on the back page to help you extend learning about the ideas through other activities.
Another really nice newly published math picture book. This would be more like ages at least 6 to 10 I'd say. The math, concepts and vocabulary is higher level than other picture books. If a child is content to have concepts go over his/her head, you can read aloud to younger kids just for the story value.
It's written from the standpoint that Pythagoras is a boy: "Long ago in ancient Greece, there lived a curious boy names Pythagoras. Pythagoras just couldn't help poking his nose into places. Sometimes, his curiousity got him in trouble, but sometimes it paid off."
It goes on to tell in a story ways he thought through problems that perplexed adults, how he found the formula for the Pythagorean Theorem based on rope-stretching and finding the famous 3, 4, 5 ratio, how he discovers square numbers, and how that knowledge was applied to distance problems, all in a story context with attractive illustrations. Really nice picture book to add to math / science history studies.
This really is a wonderfully rich picture book for Egyptian ancient history, culture, and math. The math moves from easy to some sophisticated ideas such as the Egyptian method of multiplication using the binary doubling sequence, so it has applicability to a very wide age range. Even as an adult I enjoyed it, the text is well-written, not dumbed down. Illustrations are excellent. One of the best math history picture books I've seen.
How Far is Far? by Alvin Tresselt (out of print) Ages 4 to 8 and older (back to top)
I got this one from Chris Brock's list, it's oop but if your library has it, it is really nice for younger children.
The math concepts it addresses is relativity. "How far is far?" asked the little boy. "As far as the end of your nose," said his mother, and she kissed the end of his nose.
"As far as you can walk until you get tired. As far away as the other side of the world. Even as far away as the first star that shines when the sky grows dark."
"That's a lot to think about," said the little boy, and he went out to dig a hole.
"How deep is down?" asked the little boy.
And so on.
The story threads through like this for about 20 pages (it's an OLD book and doesn't have an ISBN number or page numbers, but it was a Parent's Magazine Press Book). How high is high, how big is big, and many other questions are "discussed" with creatures and parents, it really is a lovely dialogue and enjoyable to read. Illustrations are almost like tissue-paper collage.
This is the first picture book about Einstein that I have seen and enjoyed. It really is wonderfully written and illustrated to capture the most interesting parts of his life, without skipping the important
ones :o)
For example, "The Einsteins move to the large city of Munich. There, Albert's parents encourage his independence and take the unusual step of allowing four year old Albert to wander the streets unattended." Accompanied by a 2-page illustration showing a bustly town and little Albert standing there . . .
I thought I would share this find, it's a fairly new book, I'd say for.
Another resource to recommend for families wanting to understand exactly *what* their child can learn from math literature.
Most of the books are for PK through say 4th/5th. It is a bit dated (copyright 1998) so many books I have are not listed. But I know that some people ask themselves, what are they learning as they read this math book? So the categorizing, rating and concept identification can help people desiring this.
I find it hard to categorize books because I see so many concepts that can be learned even if the book targets one.
The main chapter headings are:
Early Number Concepts
Number - Extensions and Connections
Measurement
Geometry and Spacial Concepts
Series and Other Resources (in this chapter they discuss specific
books in the I Love Math series, Mathstart, and some others).
All resources are rated highly recommended (3 stars), recommended (2) or acceptable (1).
I don't agree with all of their ratings. I can see that books that are written with more obvious math connections that can fit into standards did get higher ratings, books with softer connections got less. There is an emphasis on books with obvious concepts, and there is little soft math. But I did find most books that I would expect to be there that were in print at the time this was updated are listed.
I picked this up from the BCO sale, and I had hesitated to buy it because I thought it was an other math riddle book which I already own quite a few of. But it turns out to be a very unusual book. If you go to the Amazon link, you can look inside the book to see the format.
What it does is mix language with mathematical concepts, symbols and vocubulary to produce some really interesting connections. They start quite easy - simple addition and subtraction - for example:
pumpkin - seeds + face = jack-o'-lantern
But it also introduces multiplication and division:
Pumpkin patch
x sunlight
-------------
oooooooorange!
and:
leaves
_________
wind | autumn
All with bright illustrations. Later "division" problems include remainders that are very cleverly thought out.
As the book progresses, fractions, graphs and more complex language "equations" emerge:
tadpole = 2/3 frog
There are graphs of natural phenomenon, etc. What a delightful book.
The way I read it to my 5 and 7 y/olds was in the form of q&a - I'd read "rocks times waves equals" and they would guess (5 y/old guessed "splashes" which was a great guess, the book's answer is sand). My 9 y/old was just as intrigued by it as my younger kids, and understood the more complex notation that they would not. As such, it is unusual in it's wide age range applicability.
This isn't a poetry book, I think that name on the title makes no sense, but then, I guess they would have had a hard time saying what it was. I have seen nothing like it. It's really like the math diagramming I did with my kids, only it isn't stories, just ideas or vignettes.
