Are you looking for a different and fun way to target math skills? We like to incorporate math living books into our homeschool. In case you are not familiar, living books are basically the opposite of text books. They are fun and come ‘alive’ for the reader. You are familiar with history living books, such as biographies and historical fiction. We often remember history better when we read these books because the subject comes alive much more than history textbooks. Well, we can do the same with math. Below are sets of math living books that you should check out.
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Bed Time Math Series
This series is for math learners at the kindergarten through 2nd grade levels. They contain riddles at three levels of difficulty about a variety of topics. These books are long so you will get lots of use out of them!
Life of Fred
This series of books starts in the lower elementary grades and continues through the high school. They follow a 5 year old boy who teaches math at a college. He sometimes gets himself into strange predicaments and math and science subjects are woven into the stories. Each chapter has a You Play section where your children can answer a few questions or solve a few problems. My boys love these books and we often read a chapter together during our morning meeting.
Greg Tang Books
Grapes of Math is a NY Times Bestseller by Greg Tang. It targets visual math and number sense by having children look at a picture and find different ways to quickly see how many objects there are. For example, there may be an array of 4 x4 pictures and then three are missing. What are the different equations one could use to quickly determine how many? So essentially, they are the perfect start to a number talk. Tang has also authored at least five other books about math
Sir Cumference
This set of 10 books is set in Medieval times and each book has a math problem that needs to be solved. For example, in Sir Cumference and the Roundabout Battle, the steward and his son are adding up supplies to make sure they have enough for all the people at the castle. Another book, Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone teaches about 3D shapes.
Charlesbridge’s Other Math Adventures
The publishing company of the Sir Cumference series has many other math books as well. Here are just a few:
Other Books
There are many other books that introduce different math concepts, as well. If you visit your local library, you can find some in the non-fiction section from 510 to 519. If you have a favorite math living book, please comment below with the name!
