This post was written by 楼凤天堂 Past President聽Franki Sibberson.
I love discovering new book awards. After serving on the committee for the 楼凤天堂聽Charlotte Huck Award庐 for Outstanding聽Fiction for Children, I realized firsthand the care with which award books are selected. As I read about other book awards, I realized that each award committee is celebrating books that match a vision they have for our children.
is a children鈥檚 book award that I鈥檝e recently discovered. The Mathical Book Prize website introduces the award program this way: 鈥淢ath is more than numbers and equations!聽The Mathical Book Prize is an annual award for fiction and nonfiction books that inspire聽children of all ages to see math in the world around them.鈥�
I have been an elementary teacher for over 30 years, and most of those years were in self-contained classrooms. So as a teacher of both math and literacy, I am always looking for books that help my students understand math concepts through story.
This year, I was excited to see the 2020 Mathical picture book winners. I knew they would be an important addition to early childhood and elementary classrooms. I loved Pigeon Math by Asia Citro when I first read it. I knew immediately that not only would children enjoy this book, but it would make math come alive for them in a way that was really fun. The math is such a natural part of the story and it is engaging from the first page. It is a perfect book to help young mathematicians see math in the real world in order to build understanding.
While the math elements are prominent, I realized when I reread the book how much it has to offer to young readers and writers as well. I sometimes forget about the ways these math stories can serve as mentor texts for our youngest writers.
As a teacher of reading and writing, I find powerful the many invitations has for readers and writers of all ages to participate on their own.聽 I read the book to a group of third graders and a few immediately wanted to try to write their own humorous math story. From the engaging plot to the detailed adjectives to the changing size and font of the text, there are so many ways for student readers and writers to learn from this book.
The other Mathical Prize winning picture book this year was by Kate Read. Again, this book will help young children make sense of math concepts. But it also provides a great mentor text for young readers and writers. I could see using this book to teach lessons on the ways that the words and pictures go together to tell a story, or the careful word choices the author made in creating this story. There is something very playful about trying to tell a story in counting book format, and this book may very well invite writers to play with writing their own clever counting book.
reminds us of the value of math books to build understanding. And as teachers of young readers and writers, we also have to remember that these books鈥斺�攃an serve as powerful mentors for both fiction and nonfiction readers and writers.
Franki Sibberson is a literacy consultant with over 30 years of classroom teaching experience. She is a widely published author and is Past President of 楼凤天堂.
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