A Million Dots by Andrew Clements

Did you know it would take 11.5 days to count a million dots? Clements' book has a million dots and gives students a concept of just how many a million is. Each page marks numerical milestones on the way to a million. The 600th dot is circled indicating the number of times a mosquito's wings beats 600 per minute. The adult sperm whale weighs 87,600 pounds and there are 615,000 different words in the Oxford Dictionary are among the facts in the text. Don't go cross-eyed counting the dots!


Illustrated by Mike Reed

All of the Above, by Shelley Pearsall

Mr. Collins challenges his seventh grade math students to stay after school to build the world's largest tetrahedron and earn a world record. Four students alternate voices to tell what happens next and through the telling their individual stories emerge as well as their growing sense of teamwork and purpose. When vandals wreck their first attempt, the community rallies to help them. Mr. Collins sprinkles math facts and questions throughout like, "Each level of a tetrahedron increases by a factor of four." In order to beat the existing record, they must make four times as many pieces. Marcel's dad owns a barbecue place, and recipes for spicy barbecue sauce are also interspersed throughout the story. I expected to enjoy this book because it had a math theme, but was delighted to find it was a story with much greater depth because of the characters and their interactions.

Grades 5-8

Look! Look! Look! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace

A playful look into the intricacies of art. Three fashion-conscious mice (I guess this from their dapper wardrobes) pilfer a postcard from their human homeowners. Its a portrait of a lady in fancy Elizabethan finery, but the mice don't know this. They just have all sorts of fun looking at the pretty lady's clothes and jewelry. They carefully but simply examine pattern, line, color and shapes - all part of the K-1 art and math curriculums. As most of Wallace's books, this one also includes activities and some follow up inf. in the back. This is a clever alternative to the art books that try so hard to hook small children into more formal art. By focusing all the attention on a single painting, this one just might work!

This would also be a great pairing with Mouse Paint from years ago.

Grades K-3