Category Archives: Mathematics

123 Who Comes Next? for Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2023 #ReadYourWorld #123WhoComesNext?

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This Thursday 26 January 2023 is Multicultural Children’s Book Day (MCBD), a day for celebrating diversity in children’s books. I am pleased to be a MCBD reviewer for the fifth time this year; and was delighted to receive a copy of 123 Who Comes Next? from Star Bright Books.

About the Book

Here comes a boy, that is 1. Next comes a girl, that together makes 2. A lady joins the two, which makes them 3. Then comes a dog! How many will they make?

Creatures great and small—and even a vegetable— all come together to help children learn to count 1 to 10 and to recognize numbers. Young readers will be eager to see who comes next, and what number they are. The last page, of course, is the most surprising and fun to all. Artist Amy Matsushita-Beal presents a simple and delightful counting book of diverse characters. The whimsical details on each character add another layer of playfulness for young children.

  • Board Book / Recommended Ages 2-4 years
  • Also available in Haitian Creole/English and Spanish/English bilingual editions.

This delightful counting board book of diverse characters will be available in May 2023. It was created for a Haitian Creole book project at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California. School Library Journal (Starred Review) calls it “remarkably clever count book” and “an essential purchase for all collections.”


About the Author/Illustrator

Amy Matsushita-Beal is a freelance illustrator, designer, and hand-lettering artist based in Tokyo. Amy was born and raised in Los Angeles and graduated from the Art Center College of Design. While presented in a variety of styles, Amy’s work tends to focus on people, their intentions, and vibrancy in color and character. 123 Who Comes Next? is Amy’s first book with Star Bright Books. Visit: amymatsushitabeal.com

What I like about 123 Who Comes Next?

This counting book 123 Who Comes Next? is surprisingly delightful. By that, I mean it delights with a surprise at every page turn.

We’re all familiar with books that count from one to ten and know just what to expect. It’s true that this book fulfills those expectations, starting with one friendly boy greeting one friendly girl, adding one more on each page up to ten.

What surprises and delights, both characters and readers, is what is added to each page. The characters’ differing reactions to each newcomer create humour and provide opportunities for discussions of emotions, reactions and reasons for responding so. The minimal text (simply numeral and number word) leaves plenty of room for storytelling.

On the other hand, being able to focus on the numerals and number words helps develop number recognition as well as counting. In addition, having the numerals written on each of the characters in order of their appearance helps to develop one-to-one correspondence, an early number concept just as important as the ability to count.

I won’t give away any more. I’ll just say that this fun book provides many opportunities for language development as well learning beginning number concepts. The inclusion of diverse characters broadens its appeal. It’s a fun one to add to the collection. We can never have too many counting books.

About Multicultural Children’s Book Day

(Information supplied by MCBD)

Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2023 (1/26/22) is in its 10th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those books into the hands of young readers and educators.

Ten years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves continues. Read about our Mission & History HERE.

MCBD 2023 is honored to be Supported by these Medallion Sponsors!

FOUNDER’S CIRCLE: Mia Wenjen (Pragmaticmom) and Valarie Budayr’s (Audreypress.com)

🏅 Super Platinum Sponsor: Author Deedee Cummings and Make A Way Media

🏅 Platinum Sponsors: Language Lizard Bilingual Books in 50+ Languages 

🏅 Gold Sponsors: Interlink Books, Publisher Spotlight 

🏅 Silver Sponsors: Cardinal Rule Press,  Lee & Low, Barefoot Books, Kimberly Gordon Biddle

🏅 Bronze Sponsors: Vivian Kirkfield, Patrice McLaurin , Quarto Group, Carole P. Roman, Star Bright Books, Redfin.com, Redfin Canada, Bay Equity Home Loans, Rent.com, Title Forward

Poster Artist:  Lisa Wee

Classroom Kit Poster: Led Bradshaw

MCBD 2023 is honored to be Supported by these Author Sponsors!

Authors: Sivan Hong, Amanda Hsiung-Blodgett, Josh Funk , Stephanie M. Wildman, Gwen Jackson, Diana Huang, Afsaneh Moradian, Kathleen Burkinshaw, Eugenia Chu, Jacqueline Jules, Alejandra Domenzain, Gaia Cornwall, Ruth Spiro, Evelyn Sanchez-Toledo, Tonya Duncan Ellis, Kiyanda and Benjamin Young/Twin Powers Books, Kimberly Lee , Tameka Fryer Brown, Talia Aikens-Nuñez, Marcia Argueta Mickelson, Kerry O’Malley Cerra, Jennie Liu, Heather Murphy Capps, Diane Wilson, Sun Yung Shin, Shannon Gibney, John Coy, Irene Latham and Charles Waters, Maritza M Mejia, Lois Petren, J.C. Kato and J.C.², CultureGroove, Lindsey Rowe Parker, Red Comet Press, Shifa Saltagi Safadi, Nancy Tupper Ling, Deborah Acio, Asha Hagood, Priya Kumari, Chris Singleton, Padma Venkatraman, Teresa Robeson, Valerie Williams-Sanchez and Valorena Publishing, Martha Seif Simpson, Rochelle Melander, Alva Sachs, Moni Ritchie Hadley, Gea Meijering, Frances Díaz Evans, Michael Genhart, Angela H. Dale, Courtney Kelly, Queenbe Monyei, Jamia Wilson, Charnaie Gordon, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Debbie Zapata, Jacquetta Nammar Feldman, Natasha Yim, Tracy T. Agnelli, Kitty Feld, Anna Maria DiDio, Ko Kim, Shachi Kaushik 

MCBD 2023 is Honored to be Supported by our CoHosts and Global CoHosts!

MCBD 2023 is Honored to be Supported by theseMedia Partners!

Check out MCBD’s Multicultural Books for Kids Pinterest Board!

📌 FREE RESOURCES from Multicultural Children’s Book Day

📌 Register for the MCBD Read Your World Virtual Party

Join us on Thursday, January 26, 2023, at 9 pm EST for the 10th annual Multicultural Children’s Book Day Read Your World Virtual Party!

This epically fun and fast-paced hour includes multicultural book discussions, addressing timely issues, diverse book recommendations, & reading ideas.

We will be giving away a 10-Book Bundle during the virtual party plus Bonus Prizes as well! *** US and Global participants welcome. **

Follow the hashtag #ReadYourWorld to join the conversation, and connect with like-minded parts, authors, publishers, educators, organizations, and librarians. We look forward to seeing you all on January 26, 2023, at our virtual party!}

Lessons about recognising and counting Australian coins – #readilearn

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Money is one of those things we all need to understand to be able to participate fully in life as we know it. I think it becomes more difficult for children to understand the value of money as we move towards a cashless society, but maybe that’s because I grew up pre-cards of any kind. Now many children only see transactions made with cards or even phones and watches. Many will have no need to enter a physical bank to deposit or withdraw funds or for any other reason. It is all done online. Perhaps learning about coins and notes will one day be relegated to history lessons, but for now I think it is still important for children to learn about them and their value and they still feature in the Curriculum. For this reason, I have made some resources to support your teaching of young children about our Australian coins and their value. (Lessons about notes will be added later.)

Australian coins helps children learn to recognise, identify and describe the coins according to colour, shape and size, and the identifying icon on the tails side. Additional information is provided about the Australian animals and icons featured on the tails side of each coin. This lesson is ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard.

Australian Coins – Let’s count $1 gives children practice in counting collections of coins to $1.

There are three separate sections which can be used over a series of lessons.

  1. Count groups of coins of the same value that equal $1.
  2. Count collections of different coins that equal $1.
  3. Make collections of coins to equal $1.

These lessons are interactive and ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard.

Count Coins to $1 is a dice game that gives students practice in

  • recognising and naming coins
  • counting the value of coins to $1
  • comparing the value of coins.

It is a perfect game for maths groups to follow-up lessons with Australian Coins and Australian Coins Let’s count $1.

Continue reading: Lessons about recognising and counting Australian coins – readilearn

Learn about 100 and Celebrate 100 Days of School – #readilearn

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The Australian school year consists of approximately 200 days. Depending on the length of terms and number of public holidays in each, the 100th day often falls towards the beginning of the third term in July. Knowing that many of you will be preparing to celebrate the 100th day with lessons investigating 100, I thought I’d share our readilearn resources that support you with that. It’s always exciting to count the 100th day, because once it’s reached, it’s time to start counting down to the end of the school year, which get closer with every day.

Celebrating 100 days of school

Although Busy Bees celebrate 100 days of school suggests ways of counting the days from day one, it also suggests ways of celebrating when the 100th day arrives. Suggestions include: count and collage 100 items and decorate a cake with 100 candles. There are party suggestions and an original game to play. (Also included with purchase of the Busy Bees 100 chart.)

The explanatory Celebrating 100 days of school – Letter to parents suggests items that may be suitable for children to bring in and count as part of the 100 days celebration. It is a Word document that can be personalised with your name and class before printing and distributing. (Also included with purchase of the Busy Bees 100 chart.)

Teaching numbers up to 100

Continue reading: Learn about 100 and Celebrate 100 Days of School – readilearn

Lessons to teach 3-digit numbers – #readilearn

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The recent audit of readilearn resources for teaching number showed that, while there were many lessons for teaching understanding of number and place value to 100, lessons for teaching numbers above 100 were scant. This is somewhat understandable as confidence with numbers relies upon a firm foundation in understanding the basics of our decimal system. However, it was a situation I needed to remedy.

Last week I added 1000 Pancakes to the collection, a lesson to help children visualise 1000 objects by counting in 1s to 10, 10s to 100 and 100s to 1000.

This week, I added Let’s Count Pancakes — 3-digit numbers, a lesson that helps children recognise and represent 3-digit numbers and understand the value of each numeral in its place. The interactive lesson ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard consists of ten different slides ready to discuss with the children.

On each slide, children count the pancakes and write the number of hundreds, tens and ones they count.

Continue reading: Lessons to teach 3-digit numbers – readilearn

Let’s count 1000 pancakes for Pancake Day! – #readilearn

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Next week sees us here in Australia bid farewell to summer and welcome in the cooler (we — or I — hope) days of Autumn. Next Tuesday is not only 1 March, but also Pancake Day, which means it’s only six weeks until Easter and, for many of us, school holidays.

When I completed the recent audit of readilearn lessons in teaching number by mapping them to the Australian Curriculum, I realised that we were missing lessons in numbers over one hundred. As children in Year Two learn about numbers up to one thousand, I realised there was a gap to fill. I started by making a lesson called 1000 Pancakes.

I chose pancakes for three reasons:

  1. Pancake Day is next week. However, the lesson can be used at any time of the year; it makes no reference to Pancake Day.
  2. Pancakes are popular with children as well as adults.
  3. Pancakes in stacks are easy to visualise.

The lesson 1000 Pancakes gives children the opportunity to visualise 1000 pancakes by comparing the quantity to 10 and 100. It is a lesson ready-to-teach on the interactive whiteboard, a readilearn readilesson.

In the lesson, children count pancakes

  • in 1s to 10
  • in 10s to 100
  • and in 100s to 1000.

One thousand is a lot of pancakes.

Continue reading: Let’s count 1000 pancakes for Pancake Day! – readilearn

Matching readilearn Maths Resources to the Australian Curriculum – #readilearn

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For the past little while, I’ve been doing an audit of the readilearn maths resources that focus on number and matching them to the Australian Curriculum Number and Algebra Content Descriptions. Before making new resources, I wanted to see what concepts and content I’d already included and where the gaps, if any, were. I presented my findings in a table that I have made available as a free resource in the Maths Number collection. The table will make it easier for you to find resources to teach particular concepts.

It didn’t surprise me that the majority of resources target the basic understanding of numbers to ten and then to 100. After all, if children understand these numbers, they have a firm foundation on which to build an understanding of larger numbers.

In this post, I share where some of the readilearn maths resources can be used when teaching the Australian Curriculum. No doubt, maths concepts to be taught are the same worldwide.

These are only a few of the resources that match each of the codes and only a few of the codes. For further information, please refer to the list ACARA and readilearn lessons in number which can be downloaded free. Note that some of the resources support your teaching of more than one content description.

Counting and naming numbers in sequence to and from 20

(ACARA Code: ACMNA001)

Busy Bee Number lines and dice

Busy Bees 100 chart

Collect the eggs — a game for maths groups

Continue reading: Matching readilearn Maths Resources to the Australian Curriculum – readilearn

maths lessons and activities for 5 - 7 year-olds

Maths Lessons and Activities for 5–7 year olds – #readilearn

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Maths is fun in the early childhood classroom as we count, measure and problem solve our way through the day. With the International Day of Mathematics coming up soon on 14 March, there’s no better time to think about ways of incorporating a little more maths into the daily program. While there are some suggestions on the International Day of Mathematics website, most of them are more suited to older children.

Here at readilearn we have over 100 mathematics lessons and activities ready to support your teaching and children’s learning. Many of the resources are digital lessons ready for you to teach on the interactive whiteboard. Some are printable activities to follow up and extend children’s learning, while others provide instructions and explanations for mathematical explorations.

Plan a party to celebrate

There’s nothing like a party to instigate some mathematical thinking.

If you decide to have a party to celebrate the day, you could start ahead with the interactive problem solving story Little Koala’s Party. In the story, children help Little Koala work out the number of guests as well as food and other items required for the party. They can use the same strategies to plan a party of their own. Other resources, like invitation notepaper and a paper hat template, help to extend the learning across curriculum areas.

While you might ask children to bring food from home to share at the party, following recipes together at school involves children in using mathematics in real and purposeful ways. They may need to count, and measure quantities as well as time. Recipes can be found in the Cooking section.

Continue reading: Maths Lessons and Activities for 5–7 year olds – readilearn

Combat Boredom with Board Games – #readilearn

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Note: This article was first written for and published at the Carrot Ranch Literary Community as part of a series supporting parents with children learning at home. The benefits of playing board games are the same whether played at home or at school. If you have older children or adults available to support children while they play, board games are an excellent activity for learning in groups across many areas of the curriculum.

One of the best ways to have fun while learning, or to learn while having fun, is by playing board games. Playing games together as a family helps to bond family relationships. Adjustments can be made to suit most numbers and ages and rules can be adapted to suit your purposes. While the main thing is to have fun together, there is a lot of learning going on too.

Social Skills

  • One of the greatest benefits of playing board games is the development of social skills.
  • Some of the social skills children learn include:
  • Getting along and taking turns
  • Playing fair — accept the roll (if dice are used) or draw (if cards are used) for example, and respond accordingly: don’t try to pretend it

Continue reading: Combat Boredom with Board Games – readilearn

developing understanding of number with three new resources

Developing understanding of number with three new resources – #readilearn

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An understanding of number is crucial to navigating our complex world. It is something we use everyday whether we are aware of it or not. From things as seemingly simple as matching the number of socks to our number of feet, to scheduling our day, through to more complex activities like balancing our budget, an understanding of number and mathematics is involved.

It always saddens me when people say, ‘Oh I can’t do maths’, especially when those people are young people. I think a lot of the inability and fear was learned. I know it was for me. Perhaps that is why I am on a mission to make learning in maths enjoyable and meaningful. It doesn’t have to be fearfully abstract and complex if we build strong foundations in the early years.

There are already well over one hundred mathematics resources in the readilearn collection, and this week I have added three more. Two of the resources are interactive lessons ready to teach on the interactive whiteboard in the classroom or, for those still teaching online, via screen sharing software. The third is a printable resource. All support your teaching and are open-ended and adaptable to the needs of you and your learners.

Repeating Patterns

Let’s Make Patterns is designed for teaching and reviewing repeating patterns on the interactive whiteboard. Patterns are an important part of mathematics. Learning about patterns with objects helps children understand the patterns upon which our decimal number system is based.

Continue reading: Developing understanding of number with three new resources – readilearn

using readilearn teaching resources to support young children's learning at home

Using readilearn teaching resources to support young children’s learning at home – #readilearn

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readilearn teaching resources are primarily designed for use with children in their first three years of school whether that be in a traditional (or alternative) classroom situation or a homeschool classroom. This makes the lessons and activities just as valuable now to teachers delivering lessons online and to parents working with their children at home.

While the lessons target learning in K-2, some could be used with younger children if appropriate support and follow-up activities are provided.

We all know that the best ways to encourage young children’s learning is to talk with them, read to them, play games with them and give them plenty of time and space to play on their own and with each other. It is the play with each other that is difficult to provide when we are in lock down and, while young children still require time to make their own observations and discoveries, some adult guidance and support for their learning is also extremely beneficial.

Children learn best when they have an opportunity to discuss their ideas with others. readilearn lessons are designed with that in mind. They are not intended for children to use independently. Teachers, at home or at school, are encouraged to scaffold children’s learning with supportive discussion.

Continue reading: Using readilearn teaching resources to support young children’s learning at home – readilearn