Math Book Recommendations

Lesson 1: What’s on Sale?

Math Man by Teri Daniels is a humorous children’s book that provides a story line with real world math applications. “Math Man” is actually Garth, a stock boy at the Mighty Mart supermarket. Math Man takes Mrs. Gourd’s class on a tour of the supermarket and provides them with real world math scenarios that use addition, subtraction, multiplication and other math concepts.

Recommended audience is grades K-5.

Lesson 2: Charting and Graphing Sales

Lemonade for Sale by Stuart J. Murphy is a delightful book about four young children and their parrot Petey who operate a lemonade stand. The kids decide to run a lemonade stand in order to raise money for their clubhouse that is in need of some repairs. They construct a simple bar graph to show the sales from their neighborhood lemonade stand.

This book is well illustrated with a touch of amusement that is sure to catch the eyes of the reader.

Lesson 3: Measuring Angles

Sir Cumference and the First Round Table: A Math Adventure by Cindy Neuschwnader is a hilarious tale with a Geometry twist. Take your students back in time with King Arthur and his search for the perfectly shaped table. You’ll be introduced to Sir Cumference, the mighty knight, and his lovely wife, Lady Di of Ameter. They are aided by their son Radius and the carpenter Geo of Metry in their pursuit of the first round table. An excellent conceptual book that introduces difficult geometry terms such as circumference, radius, and acute in a fun and humorous setting.

Lesson 4: Estimating School Store Purchases

Great Estimations by Bruce Goldstone is a fun book that teaches children to make intelligent estimations of grouped items. Children are encouraged to not count individual items on a page, but to estimate the items by grouping and clump counting. Estimation skills increase with practice and this book provides page after page of colored photos of grouped items such as bugs, candy, animals or people in a swimming pool.

Goldstone has written several educational books and is well known for writing math word problems. In fact, he estimates that he has written more than 30,000 word problems, more than 12,000 pages in different textbooks, and over 2,000,000 individual words!

Lesson 5: Paying with Coins

The Case of the Shrunken Allowance by Joanne Rocklin and Marilyn Burns is an excellent story that introduces the reader to the basic concepts of money. The story is about a young boy named P. B., who, as you would expect, loves peanut butter sandwiches. P.B. can not understand why the money he is saving in a jar continues to go down. Mike and Maria, two of P.B.’s friends, plan a stake out to catch the person stealing from the money jar. They eventually catch Jill, P.B.’s sister making change with the money in the jar.

The Case of the Shrunken Allowance is a well written book that includes a section of lesson activities, and makes a nice addition to any classroom book library.

Lesson 6: Analyzing Product Price and Sales Data

What Do You Mean by "Average? by Elizabeth James is basically a story about a young girl running for student council president who wants to prove to her fellow classmates that she is just an average person.

Although this book was first published in 1978, it is an excellent piece of juvenile literature that focuses on teaching kids how to calculating the mean, median, and mode. Students experience how to calculate the mean for student height and weight, median number of kids per family, and how modal averages are used in everyday life.

Lesson 7: Calculating Sales Tax

Taxes, Taxes!: Where the Money Goes by Nancy Lowen is a narrative story about Ms. Colby’s class and the meaning of taxes. The class learns some valuable facts about taxes when they receive a visit by Todd’s mother who works for the IRS. She explains why taxes are needed and goes into detail about Uncle Sam and how our tax money is used.

This short 24-page, well illustrated book is an excellent, read-aloud piece of literature that goes hand-in-hand with this math lesson.

Lesson 8: Making Change

The Coin Counting Book by Rozanne Lanczak Williams is an excellent introductory book to the world of money. The author cleverly uses quick rhymes and jingles to count and add coins of different denominations. Students have the opportunity to practice using math skills that are needed in order to count and make correct change. Coins are displayed in a photograph form that is easy to see and includes simple mathematics equations. This book is an excellent addition to any elementary media center and will prove to be a teacher favorite.

Lesson 9: Tracking Inventory

A Fair Bear Share by Stuart J. Murphy is a delightful story about bears and is part of the MathStart book series for children.

The story is fun for students and contains a complete math lesson that deals with counting, grouping, regrouping, and adding. The book also has an appendix with additional learning suggestions and activities that involve counting and grouping of items.

Lesson 10: Profit and Loss

How the Second Grade Got $8,205.50 to Visit the Statue of Liberty by Nathan Zimelman is a perfectly matched literary pick for this profit/loss mathematics lesson.

This adventurous book is filled with humor as a group of second-grade students attempt to raise a bundle of money in order to fund a field trip to the Statue of Liberty. The students participate in a number of fund raisers, some being profitable and other for a loss. A great read-aloud-and-laugh book for all elementary grades.