Recommended Books

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

Who Sank the Boat?

Pamela Allen

Australian Curriculum:  Description

The story of 5 animal friends who decide to take a boat trip. It all goes pear-shaped when the boat won’t hold all the weight. So, who sinks the boat?

Teaching ideas
Other investigations based on the book; would the order they got in the boat have effected the outcome? Place the animals in order of lightest to heaviest - test your prediction. How would a bigger boat have effected the outcome?

Pythagoras and His Theorem: The Big Idea

Paul Strathern

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Investigate Pythagoras’ Theorem and its application to solving simple problems involving right angled triangles (ACMMG222)

Teaching ideas

The Golden Section: Natures Greatest Secret

Scott Olsen

Australian Curriculum:  Description
Teaching ideas
Cross curricular links to Humanities in particular ancient history and also art.

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.

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

Inchworm and a Half

Elinor J Pinczes

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Use direct and indirect comparisons to decide which is longer, heavier or holds more, and explain reasoning in everyday language (ACMMG006); Measure and compare the lengths and capacities of pairs of objects using uniform informal units (ACMMG019)

Teaching ideas
Measuring other lengths using concrete materials, e.g. string. Explain the history of what sea speed is measured in knots (concrete idea for measuring an abstract concept)