Monday Math Literature Volume 51

If you missed last week's post about using the Princess and the Pizza to practice adding decimals and money, you can check it out here!

I continue to be very inspired by the Math and Literature books written by Marilyn Burns, Stephanie Sheffield and some other great authors.  They have opened my eyes to finding math lessons in other children's literature.

Today I want to share with you a lesson I thought of when reading to my children.  I have not yet used this lesson in the classroom but tried it out with a few nieces and nephews.  I think it would be great in grades 1-4.  It is all about 3-D shapes!

The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza

This book is super cute!  It stars the little red hen who is working hard to make a pizza.  She doesn't seem to have what she needs on hand and has to make several trips out to pick up supplies.  She asks her friends if any of them would like to help her prepare the pizza or run errands and they keep saying no.  Finally the pizza is made and is very large!  She asks her friends for help eating it and of course they say yes.  Then she asks for help cleaning up and her friends finally agree to help.  It would make a great story to use in a lesson about helping out your friends and doing your part also.  

The best part of this book to me is that it features a lot of 3-D shapes in the pictures.  Take a look at these:

See what I mean?  This is the perfect book to use in conjunction with a lesson on 3-D shapes.  

Here is a fun way to record the 3-D shapes you identify in the book!  You will notice there are not a lot of examples of pyramids.  I find this to be true quite often when going on 3-D shape hunts.  You can grab this record sheet for free from Google drive.

 When I do this lesson in the classroom, I plan on using my shape posters to have kids do a 3-D shape hunt around the classroom.  I will spread out the posters around the room and have kids bring examples of each type of shape back to the poster that it matches.

My 3-D shape posters are available in red, green, purple and blue!

Does anyone have any other recommendations for children's literature that can be used to for a 3-D shape hunt?

Check out other great books over at Mrs. Jump's class