Activities! Earth Day, Hooray!, Dogs!, the Bigger, Better, BEST Room & (drum roll) Percy's Neighborhood!
Our Activities Newsletter is arriving in your inbox a few days early this week because EARTH DAY is on Monday! “Earth Day, Hooray!” is one of our featured books.
The newsletter usually comes out every other Wednesday, filled with selections from our vast and wonderful archive of Early Math & Early Childhood Ed activities.
Please tell your friends, colleagues, librarians & parents!
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Hello!
We have a very special surprise this week! Swiya Murti, a parent volunteer with a PhD in numerical cognition, sent me a wonderful Tik Tok video she made of an activity to teach place value based on my MathStart story, Earth Day, Hooray! Scroll down to watch. Thank you, Swiya!
Earth Day, which has now expanded into Earth Month, is a fantastic opportunity for everyone in a community to work on neighborhood projects. In my story, the members of the Save-the-Planet Club decide to clean up Gilroy Park. By the time they have finished planting all kinds of flowers, it is so pretty! Do you and your friends have any special projects planned for Earth Month?
This week’s two other featured MathStart stories are:
Henry the Fourth (ordinals)
Bigger, Better, Best! (area)
This week’s featured I See I Learn story is Percy’s Neighborhood. Percy gets to know everyone in See-and-Learn City handing out posters with his day for the big Fun Run. They meet a doctor, a firefighter, a police officer and a librarian! Percy loves going to the library. Me, too! Do you?
Your friend-who-loves-to-read,
Stuart
Mathstart is a series of 63 storybooks organized into three levels for Pre-K through Grade 4. Each story teaches a different mathematical skill.
You can buy individual books, sets by level, or a complete library. Here is list of where to find MathStart books!
• Level 1, Pre-K/ Kindergarten:
Henry the Fourth (ordinals)
It's "Dog Show Day" and the kids in the neighborhood have all gathered together to see four perfect pooches compete. Maxie's first, Baxter's second, Daisy's third, but will the stage-shy Henry the Fourth end up stealing the show?
Identifying order is essential for developing sequencing skills.
• Level 2, Kindergarten / Grade 1:
Bigger, Better, BEST! (area)
Jill can't believe it. Her older sister Jenny and older brother Jeff are at it again, arguing over who's got the better backpack and better book. But their biggest battle is over who has the best bedroom in their new house. To measure the area of their windows, they use sheets of paper. Yet even though their windows are different shapes, they both need the same number of sheets—12—to cover the glass. Their windows have the exact same area! Sheets of newsprint come in handy for measuring floor space. Meanwhile, Jill's just happy that her little room is way down the hall.
Understanding that area is a two-dimensional measurement of space is a basic concept of geometry.
• Level 3, Grades 2 - 4:
Earth Day, Hooray! (place value)
Members of Maple Street Save-the-Planet Club are cleaning up Gilroy Park when Ryan has a brainstorm: Instead of throwing aluminum cans in the garbage, why not bring them to the Recycling Center and use the money to buy flowers to decorate the park for Earth Day? Mrs. Watson, the club's advisor, figures out that they're going to need 5,000 cans, so the kids start a big collection campaign at school. Cans are grouped in bags of 10, 100 and 1,000. Recycling facts are sprinkled throughout the illustrations.
Understanding place value is key to working easily with large numbers.
BONUS! Thank you, parent volunteer Swiya Murti!
I See I Learn is a series of 16 stories that follow the adventures of the children in Miss Cathy’s class at Ready, Set Pre-K in See-and-Learn City (see map).
Each story focuses on a different social, emotional, health & safety and cognitive skill important for success in school and in life. For Pre-K / Kindergarten.
Percy’s Neighborhood (knowing your community)
Percy and his daddy are walking to the park. On the way, they have a few stops to make. See what Percy learns when he visits community helpers in his neighborhood!
As children learn more about their neighborhood, they will better understand how a society functions. Encourage your children to think about ways they might help in their own community.
Pitch in!
Do you have a story or a question? Please send me an email!