Caroline Stills

At first glance, this seems an overly simple book: it's combinations of ten mice on each page doing different things such as "9 mice tidy 1 mouse somersaults. 9 + 1=10" At second glance, you realize that there's a little bit of the ant and the grasshopper going on here. Share these two books together and kids would pick up on it. "8 mice cook. 2 mice juggle." There are the workers and the ones that play. Not all pages follow this pattern, but it's worth exploring.

While reading this book during our class about math in literature, I was very convinced that this book was not an appropriate book used to teach math to students. While reading, I noticed that the book did not have very much of a plot. Based on the criteria for choosing appropriate math books, I felt that plot was very important. After consulting with my group, I realized that since the book itself is a concept book, then it really did not need a plot. I started to notice that the book was show more actually pretty fantastic because it showed math concepts that would be extremely useful to teach to toddlers and pre-k students. In the end, I realized that this book was quite super. show less

This is part of my 365 Kids Books challenge. For an explanation see my review for [b:101 Amazing Facts about Australia|21332402|101 Amazing Facts about Australia (Countries of the World)|Jack Goldstein|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1394253825l/21332402._SY75_.jpg|25417728] You can see all the books on their own shelf.

The cover caught my eye. For some reason it reminded me of my beloved [b:10 Minutes to Bedtime|1446446|10 Minutes to Bedtime|Peggy show more Rathmann|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1351800497l/1446446._SX50_.jpg|759967]. I hadn't even registered the Math subtitle. I was not previously aware of a need to have books which draw direct parallels between how arithmetic is written and described in words, but if that is a thing you are looking for, in support of the Common Core or just general numeracy, this is a fine choice.

And, as suspected, those little rodents do get up to some interesting shenanigans, so even if you aren't looking for mathiness, you're likely pleased. Thin on plot, though.

Library copy show less

When it comes to simplifying base ten operations for young children there is nothing more imprortant then doing so with song, dance, and story. In this picture book, math facts are told and simplified through the story of ten mice as they go about there everyday activities of washing, folding, cooking, and taking care of everyday activities in their home. It separates the mice pictorially and also brings the concept of concrete to abstract thinking by providing the math equations that adding show more different addends can make ten. I think this book would work perfect if you were introducing simple base ten operations to students in 1st and 2nd grade and maybe even younger as well. Fun and simple, but in a long line of books that also do the same thing. show less