Polar Bear Math

I was recently organizing our bookshelves, and remembered I had a box of books for the kids that I had purchased before Christmas still tucked away.

When Elliott found Polar Bear Math: Learning About Fractions from Klondike and Snow by Ann Whitehead Nagda and Cindy Bickel, he asked if he was going to learn about polar bears and sounded so enthusiastic.  I had no intention of doing any activities on polar bears (the fractions are a little much for him, I only bought the book because of the great price) or doing so much "work" over the last few weeks, but it has flowed so well, so I'm just going with it.

This book is interesting for a couple of reasons.  One, it's a story about two polar bear cubs that were born in a zoo, abandoned by their mother, and raised by humans.  Secondly, it's a math reader that teaches about fractions through the life of the bears.  The "teaching" and the story line are completely separate so it doesn't interfere with the flow of the story, which still makes it a fun story for animal lovers.  It's a great living math reader.

We did skip the fraction lessons on each page, but Elliott really enjoyed the photographs and asked a lot of questions about the "life" of the polar bears based on the photographs.

Then we did a quick math activity with our counting bears.

I had him sort them by color first, just to make the math part of it easier...and to practice following instructions!

Then I started calling out addition problems for him to answer.

1+3

3+2 

4+4 

Or I would simply put an "equation" in front of him to solve.

3+3 = 6

I found it interesting that the first time I just asked him to show me how to make a number (5), he pulled out three colors, but it gave the perfect example for adding three numbers together.  We talked about how we could add 2+2 and then 4+1 to equal 5, or we could add 1+2 and then 3+2 and still come out with 5.

He really enjoyed the activity, learned something new, and it was so easy to throw together.  Mom's favorite kind of learning!



We also had a polar bear dessert.  We had some of those individual ice cream cups, and they made a great polar bear face, along with upside down chocolate chips and Hershey's Kiss, and banana slices.  Quick, Easy and according to the kids, yummy!

Also Linked Up:  Thinky Linky Thursday, TGIF, For the Kids Friday, Fun Stuff Fridays, The Play Academy, Sharing Saturday, Show and Share Saturday, The Sunday Showcase, Come Together Kids-Winter Fun, Home+School=Afterschool!, Link&Learn