“As a trio of tired tots settles into bed for the night, the sheep who should be helping them count down to slumber kick up their hooves in an energetic dance performance. Starting with one little lamb … [the] sheep tap, waltz, tango, and boogie … [until] finally, after their energy is danced out, nap sheep lull everyone to sleep.”
Kenda Henthorn’s lively, rhyming text borrows the rhythm of “Baa, Baa, Black Sheep” to create a delightful read-aloud perfect for getting out the wiggles before bedtime. Lauren Gallegos’ cute art in soothing blues and energetic purples perfectly complements the energy of Henthorn’s words.
With added learning layers such as counting to ten, dance moves/vocabulary, and a few cultural Easter eggs in the art, this picture book works for the young and young-at-heart. Highly recommended for naptime in the early childhood classroom!
SEEK AND COUNT
Written and illustrated by Yusuke Yonezu
(MineditionUSA/Michael Neugebauer Publishing; $9.99, Ages 0-3)
If you’re looking for an original counting book, I recommend Seek and Count by Yusuke Yonezu. This 20-page board book’s bright graphic art will engage young hands. Each page’s number is accompanied by an image under the flap, a pleasant surprise the reader will enjoy repeating.
Seek and Count delights while teaching young children their numbers from one to ten. I appreciate clever details such as how the egg on the cover is pictured inside with a crack; when you peek under the flap, a chick emerges. Other images are a bit of a game: number seven could be a wild hairdo but turns out to be an anemone with seven clown fish swimming nearby.
Author-illustrator Yusuke Yonezu was born in Tokyo. As a child he loved to draw and make toys out of paper and boxes. Later, he studied design. He is the creator of The Rainbow Chameleon, Five Little Apples, Moving Blocks, the Guess What? series of board books, and Yum Yum!
GOODNIGHT, NUMBERS
Written by Danica McKellar
Illustrated by Alicia Padrón (Crown Books for Young Readers; $16.99, Ages 2-5)
Math lover, author and mom of five, Lucy Ravitch, recently read Goodnight, Numbers with her family and today shares her thoughts on best-selling author, Danica McKellar’s latest book. Remember to also check out Lucy’s website, Kids Math Teacher, here.
McKellar’s newest book (it came out last week), provides a fun, hands-on approach to counting. This nod to Goodnight, Moon offers up multiple bedtime opportunities for your kids to count up to ten and learn their individual numbers. Each page presents the number both in written form, and numerically giving little ones the perfect way to practice tracing with their fingers.
Now find out more about Goodnight, Numbers in Lucy’s enlightening video, then read on.
As you go through the spreads and explore the scenes with your kids, they’ll discover several groupings of items. If not, point them out. Some are easy to spot while others can be more difficult. In fact, that’s actually a great way to keep slightly older kids interested. My four- and five-year-old kids enjoyed looking through Padrón’s illustrations to see if they could find ALL the grouped items. Did your kids notice the three sofa cushions in the video? As you saw in the video, I do suggest this book for children ages 0-6, but only if you really want to introduce numbers early. Otherwise it is ideal for ages 2+. It would be such a super idea for Crown Books for Young Readers to make Goodnight, Numbers into a board book that would be durable enough to withstand the hours of engagement this book will surely have over its lifetime. Pick up a copy at your local independent bookstore today. Happy counting!
Helping teach little kids to count can be a fun though often repetitive task, but there are quite a few books out that can make the standard 123s more interesting.
Here are three very different approaches to the standard counting exercise.
Number Circus: 1-10 and Back Againby Kveta Pacovská is a number activity book for little ones. On each page the number is given in many different formats, for example: 2, two, OO (2 circles to touch), (an illustration in the shape of 2), and often a flap with the number of objects as well. It has bright, bold colors and a play-with-me feel so that young children will enjoy running their little fingers over the numbers and counting the objects (not to mention opening the flap). It’s got 28 pages and is die cut throughout, definitely making this a great book for tactile learning of the number names and formation of writing each number digit.
Counting Lions: Portraits From the Wildby Katie Cotton is a beautiful book! It is worth every page turn just to see Stephen Walton’s gorgeous charcoal drawings of these majestic animals, but endangered animals. It takes a traditional approach of going through numbers 1-10, but the little bits of informative text along with the beautiful, realistic illustrations are wonderful. My almost three year-old loved the drawings as well as counting the various animals including lions, elephants, giraffes, pandas, tigers, chimpanzees, penguins, turtles, macaws, and zebras. I also found the extra back-matter about the animals and their extinction level very interesting. I highly recommend this book!
Counting Crows by Kathi Appelt goes from 1-12. This picture book’s got a fun, rhythmic text that groups the crows into threes, making it a nice read and highly enjoyable for young ones. The dust jacket cover was also a hit because it has textures–fuzzy, soft stripes on the crows’ sweaters, a slightly raised and coarse feel for the tree, and a smooth and silky feel for the scarf and title letters. The black and white illustrations go well with the pop of red from the crows’ sweaters. Definitely worth several readings to teach counting!
It’s great to read so many neat approaches to teaching math and numeracy. I can’t wait to see what other math related books come out next!
We’ve joined up with this clever Book Love Blog Hop after being tagged by reviewer and blogger, Cathy Ballou Mealey. The goal is to spread some book love which we’re doing for an imaginative picture book from this past September ’14 called Mr. Tweed’s Good Deeds(Flying Eye Books, $19.95, Ages 3-7) by Jim Stoten. The Blog Hop is part of Carrie Finison’s innovative Book Love Blog Hop, and we’re sure you’ll agree that it’s an absolutely brilliant concept!
The idea is to help promote children’s books worthy of positive social media attention. But with so many picture books competing for coverage, it’s difficult for every book to get their 15 minutes (or longer) of fame. As bloggers, we can help get the word out about terrific kidlit titles that may have been overlooked, and play our part in sharing some overdue shout outs.
Mr. Tweed’s Good Deeds, a seek-and-find counting book from 1-10, kept me throughly entertained as I dove in to search the first wildly colorful two-page spread. I was on the lookout for 1 kite that had snapped its string. While trying to locate the kite, I noticed so many other marvelous and zany things the author/illustrator included in a park scene: trees resembling paper airplanes and another sporting sunglasses and a hat, an enormous purple dog, an over-sized snail, some ducks on bikes and even an enormous shoe. Kids’ll have a blast pointing out the various items they notice as Mr. Tweed helps an unhappy little crocodile retrieve his lost kite.
“It felt good to help people,” Mr. Tweed thought to himself, as he left the park.
Next up Mr. Tweed volunteers to find Tibbles and Timkins, 2 adorable kittens belonging to Mrs. Fluffycuddle, that are hiding in a cottage garden. For Americans, the depiction of English scenery is a great introduction to another country although, apart from the double decker buses and no punctuation after Mr. or Mrs., it might be hard to realize the illustrator and book are from the U.K.
Kids and parents alike will have to use keen observation skills to spot the missing mice in the third spread which is a library packed with shelves and shelves of books. My favorite illustrations were of the pool, the market and the river, but I think youngsters will also enjoy the woods, the bustling street scene, the fair, and the big surprise waiting at the end.
Mr. Tweed’s kind gestures do not go unrewarded! Best of all, parents and kids will also be rewarded by the fun that is certain to be found exploring every inch of every single page in this cheerful, quirky counting picture book with its eye-popping artwork and its positive message. Try a little kindness and see how contagious it can be!
– Reviewed by Ronna Mandel
BOOK LOVE Blog Hop Instructions
1. Pick some books you love (any genre) that you think deserve more attention than they are getting.
2. Post reviews for the books you chose on Amazon/social media. The reviews can be brief – even a short review on Amazon helps. Posting on Goodreads or Shelfari is great, too, or Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc. The more places you can publicly proclaim your love, the better!
3. If you want, you can also post the reviews on your own blog, or link your blog back to your reviews on social media.
4. Feel free to display the BOOK LOVE badge designed by Dana Carey on your blog – and if you want, link it back to this post so your visitors know what it’s all about.
5. Tag some friends to do the same! Tag friends through their blogs, or on Facebook.
That’s it! If you don’t want to wait to be tagged, you can jump right in and start reviewing and tagging yourself.
