Book Talk... Wednesday?

I don't know about you but I love teaching math through literacy and that's why although I officially missed book talk Tuesday, I thought I'd share this book anyway...

Have you read it?  One is a Snail Ten is a Crab by April Pulley Sayre and Jeff Sayre is a wonderful book all about counting feet.  It starts with "1 is a snail"and continues on counting the even numbers by the feet of a person, dog, insect, spider, and crab!  Each of the odd numbers are created by adding 1 more (the snail) to each previous even number.  As I read the story I love to have students predict what animal/s they think will be next and share why they think this.  I suggest drawing out or printing large pictures with the animals that way if needed students can use 1:1 counting to double check responses.

After counting to 10 the story continues with skip counting from 10 to 100.  With each number two examples are given on how to create the number.  This provides students with examples of different ways to decompose numbers and the use of pictures makes the combination counting more concrete.

There are so many ways that this story can be used!  Here are a few ideas:

- As you read have students predict what animal comes next?  For example ask: What could 5 be?  Can you think of an animal that has 6 feet?  What two animals together can make 7 feet?

- Use the story to talk about the term 1 more.  After reading go back and break apart the odd numbers to show that they are a number and 1 more.

- Create a crab craft and number the feet from 1-10.  Have students cut off the feet and then put them back in order from 1- 10.

-  Paint crabs and practice skip counting to 100 by 10's by labeling each picture (10, 20, 30 etc.)

- Create large pictures of animals and have students arrange and combine animals to make a "total number of feet."  See if students can find different ways to make the same "total number of feet."  This would be great to do in groups :)

-  Have students think of other animals that have 1 foot, 2 feet, 4 feet etc.  Use this list to create your own class counting book of feet.

- Create a list of all the ways to make 10.  Include pictures so that students can count up the feet.

What stories do you use to help teach math concepts?