Monday Math Literature Volume 58

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One of the first things I made sure first graders can do when we get back to school is count to 120.  It is a huge standard in Kindergarten and after a long summer, I always get a few kiddos who come back not counting to 120 fluently.  I like to spend some time in the first weeks of first grade reviewing the numbers to 100 and introducing some counting and estimating ideas that we will build on later.  

I knew I wanted to connect literature to this lesson and I got this fantastic book last year that is full of flaps to lift.  I originally bought it for my nephew's birthday because he loves lift flap books but once I got it, I knew I needed one for my classroom too.

David Carter's 100: Lift the Flaps and Learn to Count!

This book is FULL of flaps to lift.  There are actually 100!   It is super fun for kids to read and a great way to review counting to 100.  Each flap is numbered so there is also practice with symbolic notation built right in.  You can get a good look at this book here! This fall, I decided to tie this book together into a lesson using this picture.

Which picture shows 100?

I had a bunch of colored paper clips laying around from my magnetic addition strips project and decided to use them in a lesson of 100.  I took 4 different pictures of 100 paper clips arranged in various ways and put them together into one image.  If you want to do this lesson with you class, you can grab this image from Google drive as a pdf or as a png.

After reading the book, I showed this image on the projector for about 10 seconds and then covered it and asked kids to think about which picture shows 100 paper clips.  I then let them see for another 15 seconds or so and once again covered it.  Next kids were asked to turn and talk with a neighbor about which picture they thought showed 100 and why they chose it.  Next we shared as a class.  About 80% of the kids selected picture #2 and the rest chose picture #3.  This did not surprise me at all because 100 seems like a lot to a young child and photos 1 and 2 are more spread out and therefore look like more.  

When I told the kids that all the pictures show 100, they did not believe me.  I had to actually get 100 paperclips out and prove it to them!  I had already put the paperclips back into a larger container so I had to have the kids help me count out 100 again but it actually worked out well because it gave them one more chance to practice their counting.

We wrapped the lesson up with a little movement and counting with this video 

You might also be interested in checking out some other videos I use to practice counting.  

Want to see more ways to use math literature in the classroom?  Check out the Math Literature tab at the top of this blog!

How have you used literature in math class?

Head over to Mrs. Jump's class for more great literature to use in your classroom.