Clocks and More Clocks

Pat Hutchins

Australian Curriculum:  Description

“When the hall clock reads twenty minutes past four, the attick clock reads twenty-three minutes past four, the kitchen clock reads twenty-five minutes past four, and the bedroom clock reads twenty-six minutes past four, what should Mr. Higgins do? He can’t tell whichc of his clocks tells the right time. He is in for a real surprise when the Clockmaker shows him that they are all correct!”

Teaching ideas
Why have Mr. Higgins clocks been right since he bought a watch?

How do you know what time it is?

Robert E. Wells

Australian Curriculum:  Description

This book tells the story of time. From the earliest ‘clocks’ devised by Egyptians to moon cycles, solar calendars, Roman calendars, tme zones and time travel.

Teaching ideas
Used for a unit starter. Many fertile questions can be derived from this book. Test the accuracy of the ancient Egyptian 'stick-clock' system.

What’s faster than a speeding Cheetah?

Robert E. Wells

Australian Curriculum:  Description

This book explores the concept of speed. Different animals, objects and concepts are benchmarked against one another to develop an understanding of speed.

Teaching ideas
Used for a unit starter. Many fertile questions can be derived from this book, e.g. what's faster than a speeding cheetah? Junior secondary could use this book to explore converting abstract units MPR to km/h

What’s smaller than a pygmy shrew?

Robert E. Wells

Australian Curriculum:  Description

This book explores the concept of size. Different animals, organisms and concepts are benchmarked against one another to develop an understanding of relative size.

Teaching ideas
Expressing all sizes referred to in the book as scientific notation (including the integers); ranking the relative sizes in ascending/decending order; investigating BIG numbers e.g. trillions etc

How Much, How Many, How Far, How Heavy, How Long, How Tall is 1000?

Helen Nolan

Australian Curriculum:  Description

This book gives a huge variety of contexts to the number one thousand. As the title describes, they explore collections, quantities, distances, weight, length and height as the children in the story try to understand how ‘big’ one thousand really is.

Teaching ideas
(1) Lots and lots of hands-on experience helps students understand large numbers. Use pasta, coins, beads, counters, other manipulatives; (2) using technology students could do a line of 25 'o', then copy and paste it four times to show an array of 100; (3) wrapping paper and patterned fabrics can be used to circle collections too.

Adam Spencer’s Mind-Boggling Maths, Outrageous Puzzles, Enormous Super-Cool Games Book of Numbers and heaps of other fun stuff!

Adam Spencer

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Prep-Sort, describe and name familiar two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects in the environment (ACMMG009); YR1-Recognise and classify familiar two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional objects using obvious features (ACMMG022); YR2-Describe the features of three-dimensional objects (ACMMG043); YR3-Identify symmetry in the environment (ACMMG066); YR4-Investigate number sequences involving multiples of 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (ACMNA074); YR5-Use efficient mental and written strategies and apply appropriate digital technologies to solve problems (ACMNA291); YR6-Construct simple prisms and pyramids (ACMMG140); YR7-Draw different views of prisms and solids formed from combinations of prisms (ACMMG161); YR8-Solve a range of problems involving rates and ratios, with and without digital technologies (ACMNA188); YR9-Express numbers in scientific notation (ACMNA210)

Teaching ideas
Real-world application in this book. Cross-curricular links are strong too, science, humanities, music, HPE etc

Miss Lily’s Fabulous Pink Feather Boa

Margaret Wild

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Identify questions or issues for categorical variables. Identify data sources and plan methods of data collection and recording (ACMSP068); Collect data, organise into categories and create displays using lists, tables, picture graphs and simple column graphs, with and without the use of digital technologies (ACMSP069); 4-Use simple scales, legends and directions to interpret information contained in basic maps (ACMMG090); 4-Construct suitable data displays, with and without the use of digital technologies, from given or collected data. Include tables, column graphs and picture graphs where one picture can represent many data values (ACMSP096); 4-Evaluate the effectiveness of different displays in illustrating data features including variability (ACMSP097); 5-Construct displays, including column graphs, dot plots and tables, appropriate for data type, with and without the use of digital technologies (ACMSP119)

Teaching ideas
Information poster on an Australian animal depicted in the book; - Scientific Name - Description - Location (map and description) - Habitat - Diet - Status (Endangered/Not Endangered) - Life Cycle - Data/statistics - Other interesting facts - Pictures/illustrations; or a trifold brochure with the above. With or without the use of technology.

Can you count to a googol?

Robert E. Wells

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Recognise, model, represent and order numbers to at least 10 000 (ACMNA052); Apply place value to partition, rearrange and regroup numbers to at least 10 000 to assist calculations and solve problems (ACMNA053); 4-Recognise, represent and order numbers to at least tens of thousands (ACMNA072); Apply place value to partition, rearrange and regroup numbers to at least tens of thousands to assist calculations and solve problems (ACMNA073); 7-Investigate index notation and represent whole numbers as products of powers of prime numbers (ACMNA149)

Teaching ideas

Maths Curse

Jon Scieszka

Australian Curriculum:  Description

3-Tell time to the minute and investigate the relationship between units of time (ACMMG062); 4-Investigate equivalent fractions used in contexts (ACMNA077); 5-Choose appropriate units of measurement for length, area, volume, capacity and mass; 6-Continue and create sequences involving whole numbers, fractions and decimals. Describe the rule used to create the sequence (ACMNA133)

Teaching ideas
There are lots of concepts explored in this book that could be extrapolated and explored further; (1) time, (2) timelines; (3) multistep problems; (4) conversions between units; (5) fractions; (6) cross KLA references; (7) charts, (8) binary, (9) Fibonacci; (10) money

The Animals went in two by two

Wendy Straw

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Investigate number sequences, initially those increasing and decreasing by twos, threes, fives and tens from any starting point, then moving to other sequences (ACMNA026)

Teaching ideas
Show students the concept of the jumping kangaroo on the number line. Use the animals from the book to show counting in 2s, 3s, 4s etc on the number line.