Recommended Books

Mathterpieces: The Art of Problem-Solving

Greg Tang

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Foundation Year – Subitise small collections of objects (ACMNA003);
Year 1 – Represent and solve simple addition and subtraction problems using a range of strategies including counting on, partitioning, and rearranging parts (ACMNA015);
Year 2 – Describe, continue, and create number patterns resulting from performing addition or subtraction (ACMNA035).

Teaching ideas
Students investigate other situations involving subitising and counting on with and without distractors in routine and non-routine situations. Students could write the number sentences represented by art in this book (representational to abstract).

Give Me Half!

Stuart J. Murphy

Australian Curriculum:  Description

This story is about a brother and sister who are asked to share all their food and drink; pizza, cupcakes, drink etc

Teaching ideas
(1) Read the story and describe what's going on in each picture; (2) vocabulary-half, whole, share, divide, divided equally; (3) gather materials (objects, quantities and collections) and discuss how you would halve them; (4) draw pictures of objects in your classroom, and lines to show 'half'

Math for All Seasons

Greg Tang

Australian Curriculum:  Description

This book explores counting up collections of items and objects. The book encourages seeing patterns to make the counting quicker than one-by-one.

Teaching ideas
(1) Prep students can count the objects in the collections within this book; (2) years 1-3 students can be encouraged to 'see the pattern' to help them partition to count up the objects in the quantities quicker; (3) Final pages of the book show the answers using numbers and symbols as well as circles drawn around the collection, year 2s and 3s should be encouraged to set their work out using numbers and symbols

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

Matherpieces: The Art of Problem-Solving

Greg Tang

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Subitise small collections of objects (ACMNA003); Represent and solve simple addition and subtraction problems using a range of strategies including counting on, partitioning and rearranging parts (ACMNA015); Describe, continue, and create number patterns resulting from performing addition or subtraction

Teaching ideas
Students investigate other situations involing subitising and counting on with and without distractors in routine and non-routine situations. Students could write the number sentences represented by art in this book (representational to abstract).

A place for zero

Angeline Sparagna LoPresti

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Establish understanding of the language and processes of counting by naming numbers in sequences, initially to and from 20, moving from  any starting point (ACMNA001); Connect number names, numerals and quantities, including zero, initially up to 10 and then beyond (ACMNA002); Yr1-Recognise, model, read, write and order numbers to at least 100. Locate these numbers on a number line (ACMNA013); Yr2-Recognise, model, represent and order numbers to at least 1000 (ACMNA027); Yr3-Recall multiplication facts of two, three, five and ten and related division facts (ACMNA056)

Teaching ideas
Explore adding numbers up to 10 then beyond and up to 900. Explore adding and multiplying by 0. Conduct some experiments with 'numberator' and 'multi-tube'.

One Thing : featuring Charlie and Lola

Lauren Child

Australian Curriculum:  Description

F.Y-Connect number names, numerals and quantities, including zero, initially up to 10 and then beyond (ACMNA002); Yr1-Represent and solve simple addition and subtraction problems using a range of strategies including counting on, partitioning and rearranging parts (ACMNA015); Yr2-Explore the connection between addition and subtraction (ACMNA029); Yr3-Recognise, model, represent and order numbers to at least 10 000 (ACMNA052); Yr3-Tell time to the minute and investigate the relationship between units of time (ACMMG062); Yr4-Recognise, represent and order numbers to at least tens of thousands (ACMNA072); Yr5-Convert between units of time (ACMMG085); Yr6-Select and apply efficient mental and written strategies and appropriate digital technologies to solve problems involving all four operations with whole numbers (ACMNA123)

Teaching ideas
Teach other vocabulary that is often used differently in everyday language such as the examples in the book; e.g. "how about no things" meaning 0 things. Explore time and how long the morning routine takes students in the class. Counting and counting on items.

My Half Day

Doris Fisher and Dani Sneed

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Yr2 – Recognise and interpret common uses of halves, quarters and eighths of shapes and collections (ACMNA033); Yr3 – Model and represent unit fractions including 1/2, 1/4, 1/3, 1/5 and their multiples to a complete whole (ACMNA058)

Teaching ideas
Year 9s could even read this book and be asked to place all fractions mentioned on a number line from smallest to largest. Year 2/3 ideas - have students match the abstract (5/8) to a picture/scenario from the story. Explore and investigate other examples of fractions in the real-world.

Two of Everything

Lily Toy Hong

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Recall multiplication facts of two, three, five and ten and related division facts (ACMNA056)

Teaching ideas
Students investigate other "doubling" scenarios.

A Dad who Measures Up

Davide Cali; Anna Laura Cantone

Australian Curriculum:  Description

Measure, order and compare objects using familiar metric units of length, mass and capacity (ACMMG061)

Teaching ideas
Explore other objects and ideas that can be measured like the idea in the book; "how tall would 4 Daddies tall be?"