Fairfax County’s WINTER READING CHALLENGE is such a fantastic idea!! We will be posting recommendations all winter! Today, the recommendations are all Math-based. A deep foundation of number-sense is key to a lifelong love and understanding of mathematics. This is easy to achieve because math is everywhere! It’s in nature. It’s in music. It’s there to help you share a muffin and build the best fort. By embracing all the opportunities to experience math, especially in beloved stories, we are giving our kiddos a leg up while spending quality time with them!

Here is a “top-ten” list of our favorite math books! Buy them for your bookshelf, or help us by picking one up for our classroom! Tangible, physical books that the kids can touch are especially good for growth.

1. 1,2,3 to the Zoo by Eric Carle: A classic, colorful story that encourages kiddos to count to ten with their favorite animals. Also provides an opportunity for number pairs. (example: There are five animals! Two lions, three tigers! There are five animals! Four birds, one rhino!)

2. Feast for Ten by Cathryn Falwell: A count-to-ten book that ties numbers to food and family. Gives the opportunity for a class to have snacks and count them, or to “share” the food they pull together.

3. Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins: Introduction to subtraction from 10-0. Can be paired with an art project

4. Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert: This covers shapes as well as numbers, and it uses shapes to create bigger pictures.

5. Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews: Number names and sequences! Number comparisons! General number sense and subitization.

6. One Red Sun by Ezra Jack Keats: Simple 1-10 book, incredibly lovely, inspires art through mathematics

7. Five Creatures by Emily Jenkins: A whacky story that is so good for number pairs and comparisons!

8. Quack and Count by Keith Baker: This is perfect for subitization and number pairs, which is the beginning of addition.

9. Pattern Fish by Trudy Harris: Excellent for pattern recognition and repetition, as well as how to create patterns on your own.

10. Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins: This is more for spatial awareness along with distance and proximity. It’s also just a relaxing, fantastic story