Curriculum Web Planning Tool:
Extending Early Mathematics Knowledge Through
Planned Learning Experiences Around Books
Books offer staff a powerful tool for expanding young children’s mathematical vocabulary and for supporting their developing mathematical knowledge. The learning does not need to stop with books! Staff can plan other experiences to extend the mathematical concepts that are introduced when reading a book. The curriculum web planning tool is a useful way to carefully consider other classroom opportunities to deepen young children’s mathematical knowledge. Staff should read the book themselves before reading it to children. Plan to read the book to the children before doing the activities on the webs.
This packet contains four curriculum web examples and a blank curriculum web, which early childhood education staff can use for planning. Refer to Finding the Math in Books for examples of children’s books that are rich in mathematical content. Use the curriculum web planning tool to record additional math experiences for the children in your classroom.
The four curriculum webs in this packet are based on these books:
A brief description of each book is included on the following page.
Chicken Soup with Rice: A Book of Months by Maurice Sendak
Although often described as a book to teach the months of the year and seasons, this book has many math concepts. As children hear all the different things to do with chicken soup with rice each month, they can be introduced to spatial vocabulary—position words—about where to eat chicken soup or where the soup bowls are found. The repeating words “once” and “twice” provide an opportunity to learn about the small numbers “one” and “two.” Children are exposed to patterns by hearing the same phrase at the end of each month’s rhyme about chicken soup with rice.
Go, Dog. Go! by P. D. Eastman
This is a fun-filled book with lots of colorful illustrations and simple, repeating phrases describing dogs doing all kinds of activities. While following the dogs’ different adventures, children can count, compare sizes, and learn about spatial directions and speed.
Round Is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes by Roseanne Thong
In this brightly illustrated story told in simple rhyme, a young Chinese girl identifies the shapes of many objects found in her home and neighborhood. The objects are a wonderful mix of things familiar and, for some readers, not so familiar—for example, square boxes that contain pizza or dim sum. In addition to providing opportunities for children to identify shapes, the book is an introduction to the Chinese culture.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
This classic children’s book tells the story of a caterpillar and what he eats in the one week before he builds a cocoon and, two weeks later, turns into a butterfly! In addition to providing many opportunities for children to practice counting and comparing size, the story line offers other topics that can be used for planning other mathematical learning experiences in the classroom.
Small Group Activity
Read the book to the children, emphasizing the math vocabulary and opposites presented in the text. Encourage children to use the spatial vocabulary as you discuss the book (around, again, fast, away, on top, up/down, in/out, over/under). After children become familiar with the book and vocabulary, ask them to describe where dogs are as you read together. Point out the shapes in the illustrations. Call attention to the repeating sequence: “Hello!” “Hello!” “Do you like my hat?” “I do not.” “Good-by!” “Good-by!”
Questions or Comments:
Which dogs are going up? Down? In? Out?
Where are the dogs now? (under the tree, in the water, etc.)
What shape do the wheels look like?
What do you think she is going to say now? What will he say?
Block Area
Put out blocks, toy cars, road signs, and other accessories in the block area. Suggest the children set up a track that shows how the dogs in the book might drive to the dog party. Talk with the children about their block constructions using the spatial vocabulary from the book and other spatial terms such as beside and next to.
Questions or Comments:
You are driving the car under the bridge and over the ramp.
You are going fast. What would it look like to go slow?
Finding the Math in . . .
Go, Dog. Go! by P.D Eastman
Help the children make their own hats like the dog party hats in the book. (Go to http://theparentsite.com/family/paperhats.htm for directions for making hats.) Have the children decorate their hats. Read the book, and put on the hats at the end of the story when the dogs arrive at the party. Together recite the sequence of “Hello, hello, etc.”
Questions or Comments:
We are folding the paper from bottom to top. Now we are making a fold in the middle. Look! What shape is your hat?
Outdoor Area
Set up an obstacle course outside with objects such as big cardboard boxes, tables, traffic cones, ropes, and hula hoops that children can move over, under, around, up and down, and in and out of. Start with three or four tasks. First, go through the course yourself and describe what you are doing; then have the children try.
Questions or Comments:
First, I step over the jump rope and then walk around the cone.
Pilar is going into the box. Now she is coming out of the box.
You are going under the table.
We have been reading Go, Dog. Go! and learning about position words. Try making an obstacle course at home. For example you can use a wastebasket to walk around, a broom to step over, and a table to crawl under. As you bring your child to school, talk about the routes you take: We go down the hill and turn next to the gas station.
New words to talk about:
up/down, in/out, over/under, top/bottom, around, next to, beside, circle, triangle, right/left
**Remember, staff should always read the book themselves, read the book to the children, and then scaffold to other activities**
Block/Manipulative/Art Area
Take photos of your community. Enlarge and hang them in the block area. Stock the area with blocks and items that are the same shapes as those in the photos. Discuss the various shapes in the photos and the children’s structures/pictures.
Questions or Comments:
The door in your building is the same shape as the door on Bob’s Market. What is that shape called? The end of the roof on this building looks like a triangle. Do you have any blocks that you could use to build a roof like it?
**Remember, staff should always read the book themselves, read the book to the children, and then scaffold to other activities**
Read the book several times to let the children enjoy the poem and rhyming pattern and notice the objects. Encourage children to talk about what they see. Next play “Which Shape Does Not Belong.” Place two or three matching shapes and one different shape on a tray.
Questions or Comments:
Which shape does not belong? How is it different from the other shapes? How are the shapes that do belong alike?
Art Area
The art area provides many opportunities for children to explore shapes. Display posters of paintings with geometric shapes. Talk about the attributes of the shapes in the pictures (e.g., sides, corners, curved/straight/leaning).
Questions or Comments:
How many sides do you need to make your triangle/rectangle/hexagon?
How many corners? Let’s start with a square and make a cube like this. How many corners does the cube have? How many edges?
Tell me about your pattern. What shapes did you use?
Finding the Math in . . .
Round Is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes
by Roseanne Thong
We have been reading Round Is a Mooncake: A Book of Shapes. The little girl in the story identifies the shapes of familiar objects. Walk with your child around your home or neighborhood and talk about the shapes you see. Use shape names and descriptions when talking with your child.
How many circles can we find? The clock is like a circle; it is perfectly round. Do you see a circle on the CD player?
Do you see a square? Does it have straight sides that are all the same length?
Manipulatives
After reading Round Is a Mooncake, make a lotto game with pictures of familiar objects to match with silhouette 2-D shapes (e.g., a tortilla like a circle or a book like a square). Encourage the children to talk about shape attributes and to find objects with matching shapes.
Questions or Comments:
A square has four straight sides that all are the same length. Does this (picture) look like a square? How is it the same? or How is it different? Can you find more like this shape?
Small Group Activity
Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and emphasize counting and comparing. Count the items that the caterpillar eats each day. Encourage beginning counters to count two or three items. Ask preschoolers to show “how many” by showing the same number of fingers. Compare the number of fruits the caterpillar eats each day. Point out the growing pattern of one more fruit each day.
Questions or Comments:
How many pears did the caterpillar eat?
Did the caterpillar eat more plums or strawberries?
Make a class book called The Very Hungry Children. Prepare preprinted pages with this sentence: “One day (child’s name) ate (number of pieces up to five) pieces of (fruit name).” Have children dictate words that complete the sentence and draw pictures of themselves eating the fruit. Sort the pages by number (placing all the pages that have one piece of fruit first, followed by two pieces, etc.). Bind the pages together in a book and place it in the library area.
We have been reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar and are learning about the numbers one through five.
Ask your child to read you our class book, called The Very Hungry Children, and find out what your child ate for snack one day.
Encourage your child to count objects (up to five) using number words and fingers to answer the question “How many?”
**Remember, staff should always read the book themselves, read the book to the children, and then scaffold to other activities**
National Head Start Family Literacy Center, Sonoma State University