Math Picture Books / Math Facts that Stick

[TJWinMA]

Hello! 

I will be using Saxon Math 2 with our 1st grader next year, and am looking for some math picture books to use a supplement (perhaps similar to the Sir Cumference series?).  Any recommendations that would be appropriate for that level?

Also, I'm wondering what your experience has been with Kate Snow's Addition Facts that Stick and Subtraction Facts that Stick.  My son is a visual learner and I wonder if it would be a good supplement to reinforce what we have been doing this year in Saxon Math 1.  Some of the reviews criticize the the Facts that Stick books as being "heavily common core."  Would love to hear your thoughts.

Best,

Tom

[HomeAgain]

The Facts That Stick books are not common core, and I wouldn't care if they were labeled as such.  They're fact mastery using ten-frames tools and games to practice.  Those who complain about that probably would actually have different concerns if the conversation were longer and not just a sound bite.  If the complaint is that they really are a topic covered in common core, then it's not a complaint that interests me.

For picture books, we liked Anno's Math Games.  There are 3 that go through different math topics, but they are not really storybooks.  For stories, like Equal Shmequal, you can browse on Amazon by typing in "math story books" and several options will come up.  There used to be a series like the Read And Find Out Science books that were cute little stories my kids liked, but all about a math concept.  They were good, but I don't know if I can find them again.

[amiesmom]

I have used the Facts that Stick books with two of my kids. One is a very visual learner and for her these books were amazing! Not only did she learn her facts, but she truly learned to visualize math.

I remember when she was about 7, we had gone through the addition book, her regular math curriculum was introducing multiplication. She was looking at the problem 8x3. Her book simply wanted her to add 8 three times. She was thinking about it and pretty soon said 15+9 is 24. I asked her to explain her thinking. She said "Oh that's easy 8 is just 5+3 so 3 fives that's 15 and 3 threes that's 9 and when you add 15+9 you can think 14+10 because that's easier, so 24." I was really impressed and I credit that level of thinking and being able to visualize to Addition Facts That Stick.

Is it "heavily common core"? I don't really know. I guess it uses a 10-frame which is often used in common core curriculum. It teaches math facts in a way that helps kids to visualize and therefore remember them.

Here are some lists of picture books from the FTS author's website if you are interested:

Kinder

First

[Lori D.]

Welcome, Tom! I see by your post count that you are new.

There are several visual math facts books out there, so you wouldn't have to go with Kate Snow's version, if it's not a good fit for your child.

You might spend some time working with cusienaire rods and use some of the Miquon math workbooks (and the Education Unboxed videos) as a visual supplement. It is a more discovery-approach which can embed math facts by seeing the different rod lengths and what rod lengths go together to create another length of rod (in other words, addition and subtraction 😉 ). 

Another option might be Math-U-See, which is very visual and tactile, and I believe it teaches some of the "tricks" to help math facts stick.

There are also some great videos with catchy songs that can be very helpful for fact memorization. Here's a free addition math facts video/song, for example.

And, I'll throw in a plug for triangle flashcards, as they reduce the # of facts needed to be memorized by 75%, by creating a "fact family" out of 3 numbers, and seeing the various connections between the 3 numbers. For example, the triangle-shaped card with a number of 4, 5, and 9 each in one corner, "drills" the four math facts of:  4+5=9  5+4=9   9-5=4  9-4=5 -- and the child really sees the connection between these 3 numbers, not only for speedy math fact recall, but also when actually working with numbers for more complex calculations (like long division in the later elementary grades). Triangle flashcards, along with math fact songs, were HUGELY helpful to my very visual-spatial learner who struggled with math for *years*.

I will also add that drilling just killed my DS's ability to think, so when I did use triangle flashcards, it was NOT timed, and we did just a small amount in a day. We also just played a ton of games that used adding and subtracting so that he saw a "purpose" for math facts -- but so it also very quietly practiced math facts in real life ways without stressing him out.

- Shut the Box
- Sum Swamp
- regular deck of cards and games that involved comparing, adding, subtracting the numbers
- board games with dice or money

Also computer games (NOT TIMED!) that involved math facts, like Number Munchers, and others.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Lori D.

[Lori D.]

For math picture books/stepped readers, here's a list I had compiled years back:

Money/Small Business Concepts
Arthur's Funny Money (Hoban)

Patterns
Busy Bugs: A Book about Patterns (Harvey)
Pattern Fish (Harris)
Pattern Bugs (Harris)
Stay in Line (Slater/Fiammenghi)
More or Less a Mess (Keenen/Burns)

Sorting / Odd and Even
Cat Show (Harvey)
Even Steven and Odd Todd (Cristaldi)
More or Less a Mess (Keenen/Burns)
Stay in Line (Slater/Fiammenghi)

Probablility
No Fair! (Holtzman)

Sets
One Hundred Shoes (Ghigna)

Shapes
Shape Spotters (Bryant)

Counting
Monster Math (MacCarone) -- counting back from 10
Five Silly Fishermen (Edwards)
100 Monsters in My School (Bader)
20 Hungry Piggies (Harris) -- counting and ordinal numbers
How Many Feet? How Many Tails (Burns)
98, 99, 100! Ready or Not, Here I Come! (Slater/Fiammenghi)

Weighing/Comparison
No Fair! (Holtzman)
The Dragon's Scales (Albee)
How Big is Big (Strauss)
Little Numbers (Packard) -- fractional and decimal numbers

Graphs
Graphs (Bader)
Fly on the Ceiling (Glass)

Time
Telling Time (Murphy)
Just a Minute! (Slater/Burns)
What Time Is It (Keenan)
Monster Math: School Time (MacCarone)

Money
A Dollar For Penny (Glass)
Bowwow Bake Sale (Stamper)
A Quarter From the Tooth Fairy (Holtzman)
The Case of the Shrunken Allowance (Rocklin/Burns)

Arithmetic
Monster Math Picnic (MacCarone) -- adding to 10
Cats Add Up (Ochiltree/Dunn-Ramsey) -- addition
The Mission of Addition (Cleary) -- addition
The Action of Subtraction (Cleary) -- subtraction
Breakfast at Danny's Diner (Stamper) -- multiplication
Too Many Cooks (Buckless) -- multiplication
512 Ants on Sullivan Street (Losi) -- doubling
One Hungry Cat (Rocklin/Burns) -- division
Two Tickets To Ride (Slater/Burns) -- division
The Smushy Bus (Helakoski) -- all 4 operations

Math Puzzles
Ben Franklin and the Magic Squares (Murphy/Walz)
Three Pigs, One Wolf, Seven Magic Shapes (MacCarone)

Fractions
Go, Fractions! (Stamper) -- patterns
Pizza Pizzazz (Losi/Burns)

Math Matters series (K-3rd) -- delightful math dilemnas, clever character solutions
The 100-Pound Problem (Dussling) -- weight
All Aboard (Skinner) -- time/schedule
Bad Luck Brad (Gail Herman) -- estimating
Carrie Measures Up (Aber) -- measuring
Chickens on the Move (Pollack) -- area and perimeter
Clean Sweep Campers (Penner) -- fractions
A Collection for Kate (deRubertis) -- sorting
Everybody Wins (Bruce) -- division
Grandma's Button Box (Aber) -- sorting
It's About Time, Max! (Richards) -- telling time
Sam's Sneaker Squares (Gabriel) -- measuring
Stacks of Trouble (Brenner) -- multiplication
Tightwad Tod (Skinner) -- money
Where's That Bone (Penner) -- mapping
Who's Got Spots (Aber) -- organizing information with tallies and graphs
X Marks the Spot (Penner) -- mapping

[goldenecho]

I LOVED MFTS for Addition and Subtraction.  Such an easy program to use and it was really effective.

My son is also a visual learner (and has ADHD).   We tried Math U See first and it didn't work (it was good on teaching place value but for addition it fell flat).  We also tried  just rote memorization and that didn't work past doubles.  

The lessons in MFTS really gave him a sense of how the math worked and the games helped him commit them to memory.  The visual representations of the numbers helped him be able to conceptualize things in his head. 

We spent two weeks in stead of one on most lessons but ONLY did the games not the worksheets, and he actually learned from it and didn't hate it. 

I will say that by the time we got to Multiplication though he was getting tired of the games though, because the games are basically variation of the same games.   And by Multiplication in stead of doing a single game each level they do all of them each lesson (on separate days, but anyways).   So he was getting bored of those games.   I also don't feel like the Multiplication one did quite as good of a job at conceptualizing things.    They did really well on some levels (like fours), but I ended up subbing my own trick for nines because I feel like the way they showed it was actually harder.

We never did Division because he went back to school for a couple years at that point.

I have no idea whether it's common core cause I don't really know about common core...but it's a good program.

Edited May 12, 2021 by goldenecho

[TJWinMA]

Thank you all for the wonderful feedback and suggestions.  I truly appreciate it!

[Not_a_Number]

I liked this site a bunch for relatively curated books: 

https://www.the-best-childrens-books.org/math-for-kids.html

 

This one is good, too: 

https://everydaymath.uchicago.edu/teachers/3rd-grade/literature-list/

 

I don't think "Common Core" is an insult, and I'm a mathematician. I've seen some terrible implementations of Common Core, but ultimately, its heart is in the right place: it tried to get some sense-making back into math instead of just drilling algorithms. Did it succeed? That's another question. But lots of the components of Common Core are used in successful math programs. 

Edited May 12, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[knitgrl]

This website has a lot of math picture books listed by topic:

https://www.livingmath.net/reader-index

[Not_a_Number]

45 minutes ago, knitgrl said:

This website has a lot of math picture books listed by topic:

https://www.livingmath.net/reader-index

Oooooh. Very nice! 

[Sherry in OH]

Stuart Murphy's  MathStart series covers pre-school through 3rd/4th grade math topics.