Adding Arctic Animals

Children's Literature

Full-color photographs and simple text introduce the animals of the Artic, grouped to provide practice in solving easy addition problems. On each spread, young readers are to look closely at the animals on one page, then the other, and asked: how many are there in total? The answer is then spelled out in numerical equations, reinforcing the lesson. Kids will be so captivated by the photos of polar bears, Arctic hares, wild caribou and others in their natural settings that they will want to practice adding them up again and again! The sturdy hardcover book includes a handy "words to know"/index, word count of the text, and an "early intervention level" ranking. This colorful math book would be a useful addition to any classroom or library shelf. 2004, Yellow Umbrella Books/Capstone Press, Ages 6 to 8.
—Dianne Ochiltree

School Library Journal

K-Gr 3-In the first title, each spread shows pictures of arctic creatures, with a problem in addition included in the text. "Female caribou live with their babies. Male caribou often live alone. Add the caribou: 3 + 1 = 4." Students can count the animals in the large, color photographs and connect their counting with the equation. Chickens describes how to count by twos, fives, and tens. For example, one page shows a photo of a starfish, with the text noting that it has five arms. The facing page shows 3 photos of the starfish: "5, 10, 15-you know what to do!" Rhyming adds to the book's appeal. The third title includes illustrations of bar and pie graphs. The text describes having a bake sale and determining which treat sold the most. The different graph types are explained, using photos of cookies, doughnuts, and pies in conjunction with them to make easy connections for readers. Although these titles fill a need for very simple math books for beginning readers, they will probably appeal more to teachers than to children.-Karen Stuppi, Harmony Elementary School, Middletown, NJ Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.