Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Children's Math Book Review: How Big is a Million? (Penguins!)

Although our penguin unit is long over, I couldn't resist picking up one more related book. Pipkin, a young penguin, wants to know How Big is a Million? He finds ten fish, 100 penguins, and 1,000 snowflakes, but he cannot find a million. Finally, his mother takes him outside to look at the starry night. In a pocket in the back of the book, the reader finds a poster depicting exactly one million stars. In contrast to some other "million" books where the quantity is distributed throughout the book, this picture allows the reader a glimpse of a million of something in one shot. Sweet book for exploring the concept of one million. 

The only thing I wasn't sure about...  Does the book actually show 1,000 snowflakes? I know it shows 10, 100, and a million, but I wasn't sure about 1,000. A friend of mine found some information from the author, explaining how the book developed. It leaves me to assume that all the illustrations are accurately counted.

And I have to post one more penguin math link. You'll know my sense of humor when I say this song cracked me up:



Keywords: million lesson plan, penguin lesson plan

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