Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Mini-Books for Your child to Make---For School, Homeschoolers or At-Home Fun!




Want to make a simple book with your child? A book they can read, color, even stick in their book shelf? Yes? Well then, meet LION and MOUSE, two lovable (even adorable!) and humorous characters who will help win the hearts of your kids as they learn basic math concepts! Nancy Sanders and I had so much fun creating this book together.

In "15 Easy & Irresistible Math Mini-Books" students in grades K-2 read stories about Lion and Mouse---two best friends who find ways to use math in EVERYDAY situations, such as counting seashells at the beach, baking cookies, or going shopping. These scenarios reinforce the idea to young children that we are living in a math oriented world---but math does NOT need to be scary. It WAS scary for me as a young child. I can still remember my palms getting sweaty just thinking about having to write a problem on the chalk board! I only wish I'd had a book like this one. Understanding how math is incorporated into daily life is a KEY CONCEPT of developmental learning for primary-age children.

Predictable language and repetition will help young readers gain confidence practicing their reading skills, while strengthening their math skills as the eagerly join Lion and Mouse’s math-driven adventures!

Children will learn about fractions with Lion and mouse in "Camping Fractions". They'll watch the clock while cooking Tick-Tock Soup, and add the number of falling leaves. The last page of each mini-book is a related activity page that reinforces the story’s key math concept.

Here's more fun---an extension activity is included to further reinforce the concepts in each mini-book. Children learn a rhyme about disappearing crickets as they count backwards from 5. They learn about shapes while cutting out birdhouses for a bulletin board display. They count to 100 while sharing small surprises from home.

Nancy Sanders and I hope these funny math mini-books will make your students fall in love with Lion and Mouse, while sparking their interest in math!


These mini-books and their corresponding activities correlate with the NCTM Standards (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics).

4 comments:

Anita said...

Your books sound like so much fun and so creative, too! My granddaughter would certainly enjoy them.
I really enjoy reading your blog.
Thank You,
Anita

Sheryl Crawford said...

Hi Anita! I think Lion and Mouse make each little mini-book book enjoyable for children. Even in a book as short as 8-pages(kids make them) the characters have time to be endearing and funny--even charming (o; Nancy and I chuckled a LOT while writing this one. I gave my granddaughters this book. One is struggling a bit with math (as I did). She's using it at home for FUN and she's grasping early math concepts at the same time. You can get them for a good price through amazon. There are reproducibles so you are allowed to make copies of each book mini-book, and SHARE (((o; Thanks for checking in.
Blessing!

Janet said...

These books sound like fun for little ones. Having a lion and mouse for the characters was an imaginative idea.

Sheryl Crawford said...

Hi Janet (o; I think the fact that Lion and Mouse are opposites, makes it a cute character combination.