Place Value Must Read Mentor Text

Yay for math mentor texts!!

I love reading books in math!

I could probably wait and share these books when school starts next year, but then again, I can just share them again when that rolls around, too!  ;O)

I have a hard time picking just one book each Sunday.  So, I'll share two that I really love to use to introduce place value and to do an informal assessment as to where my students are in their number sense and understanding of writing and reading numbers.

In fourth grade, they need to know place value up to one million.  Here are the two books I introduce it with.

The first is

I like this book because it relates a million to real life.  Kids have no idea how much a million really is.  This book puts it into perspective.  

I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend 23 days of my life counting to 1 million.  But sometimes kids just don't even realize how BIG that number is, so I like this book because it shows them just how big it is!

The next book I use to do an informal assessment.  Usually when I read it, the students have white boards and markers and we go through this together.

This book is covered in dots.  A million of them, in fact.  My cameras were not cooperating very well, so my pictures aren't stellar but I hope you can get an idea of what it looks like.  The entire book has a million dots and on each page, there is a fact, with a number.  There is also a dot or two circled on each page.  That circled dot is the dot that corresponds to the number in the fact.  Here is a page:

Can you see all of those teeny tiny black dots all over the page?  The fact says, "It is 24,901 miles around the Earth at the equator."  The color of the box around the fact tells you what color the circle is at the top of the page. So since this fact is in a green box, the circle is green.  Then, the purple arrow tells you that there have been 47,679 dots so far on all of the pages you have turned.  It's a running total.

So, what I do is I read the fact to the class before showing them the picture.  I ask them to write the number on their white board.  Then, I spot check them.  Then, I show them the picture and we find the dot together.  Then, I read them the number in the purple arrow and have them write that number on their white board as well.  It's very simple, but they love it (because they all want to find that dot!) and it's a quick way for me to assess if they can even write their numbers correctly.

Of course, I also throw out words like value and digit and place and see how many of them can tell me the value of the number in the thousands place, etc.  They also write that and show me on their white boards.  You can take it as far as you want to!

Here are a few more pictures.  I just love the illustrations.  Sorry for the poor photo quality.

I usually never finish reading this book because I just do this for a quick informal assessment.  But, I do leave the book out so that the students can read it and go searching for the dots.  Every year, this is a class favorite!

So, these are two very simple books that I use to introduce and pre-assess place value in my classroom at the beginning of the year!!

Now, it's your turn!

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I can't wait to see what math mentor texts you link up this week!!  I hope everyone is able to enjoy Mother's Day today!
Amanda

For the Linky- Please make yourself a SANDWICH!  Please comment on the person who linked up before you and the person that linked up after you.  I know everyone puts in a lot of time and effort to these posts and I want everyone to feel the love!!!  (Haha, see, you're a sandwich...you know...because you are in the middle of the comments...do you get it?)  ;O)

Next week's topic- Science