Circles and Squares Everywhere!

Title: Circles and Squares Everywhere!
Author and Illustrator: Max Grover
Publisher and date of Publication: Harcourt Brace and Co., 1996
Genre: Picture Book, Concept Book
Age Range: K-1st Grade

Summary:
This book is about circles and squares! It shows how circles and squares show up in everyday life.
It has very few words on each page and I think this is so young beginning readers can read a book by themselves. One page says, "circle" and then shows different things in the world that are shaped like circles. Then it shows "square," and does the same thing. It has big bold colors and pictures that show different shapes in the world. The illustrations are made of acrylics.

Response:
I think this book is very basic but it would be good for kindergardners that want to read. Children could identify the sound of a shape, such as "circle" with the actual word. I noticed how large the words on the page were and how few words were on each page. On one side of the page it says the shape or object that is shaped like a circle or square and shows it, and on the other it shows a picture of different scenes with the shapes in it.
I think young children would be proud to say that they read a book by themselves. The children could pick out the shapes in the pictures on each page because all the pictures are made of basic shapes that children could reconize. This book is very basic but young children would learn a lot from the shapes on each page.

Teaching Ideas:
I think that if I was teaching kindergarten, I would read this book aloud to the class before introducing or reviewing shapes. Most kindergartners know their shapes but for the children that are struggling, this book would help, and it would be a good review for others. As I read each page, the children could point out shapes in the picture they see. For more advanced children, they may even try to make their own book with shapes and a story in it.

Less Than Zero

Title: Less Than Zero
Author: Stuart J. Murphy
Illustrator: Frank Remkiewicz
Publisher and date of Publication: Harper Collins Publishers, 2003
Genre: Picture Book, Concept Book
Age Range: 2nd-3rd grade
Summary:
This picture book is about a little peguin named Perry. Perry wants an ice scooter and it costs 9 clams but Perry doesn't have any.
Through the book, Perry does odd jobs to get clams but also gets pressured into spending his clams. Through his journey Perry helps readers to understand negative numbers buy spending more clams than he has. In the end Perry gets enough clams to buy the ice scooter he wanted.

Response:
I think that this book is wonderful for young children struggling with adding and subtracting when you are left with negative numbers. Perry uses a graph in the story to show visually how many clams he has. The graph helps children who needs to see things visually to understand what a negative
number is. The illustrations in the book were made with bold colors that I loved and I know children would love as well. At one part in the story Perry uses his clams to buy a fishy float, which is like buying ice cream off the ice cream truck. I loved seeing the visual of
what a fishy float was. This book could also help children who don't understand how to make a line graph. When I was in school, I understood negative numbers pretty well but a lot of children can't understand that there can be numbers below zero. The illustrations in the book are so bright and lively. It feels as if you are there, on the ice, with the little peguin. Children would love this story with the illustrations, and learn at the same time.

Teaching Ideas:
This book would be so good for second or third graders that are introduced to negative numbers. The story could help them understand by having a story to associate it with. I would read this story maybe even before introducing negative numbers during story time and have a children take turns listening to the story and drawing a line on the line graph from what I read in the story, like Perry did.