You Can, Toucan, Math

Written by David A. Adler
Illustrated by Edward Miller

Recommended Grade Level: 2-4

NCTM standards: Number and Operations, Problem Solving

Summary: From Two Toucans to Crows in Rows, this book presents twenty-one bird-themed rhyming word problems. These number riddles ask readers to decide whether to use addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division to solve the word problem. For younger grade levels, children can also discover the answer by simply counting the birds in the colorful illustrations. A typical riddle goes: "Two toucans, / and seven, / and four toucans more -/ how many toucans / are two, seven, and four?"

Uses for this book: This book serves as a good introduction into basic word problem solving for students in grades 2-3. The book could be used across grades 2-4 since teachers can pick and choose the number riddles that best suit their purpose. It could be used in 4th grade to help students review or refresh their memory on the four different number operations. In addition, in 4th grade, the teacher could read one number riddle a day for three straight weeks or sporadically throughout the year. The four number operation fact table endpapers could help students to test their own knowledge of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts.

One activity that students could do is to create their own number riddle. The class could decide on a topic to write their rhyming word problems on in case they want an unifying theme. Otherwise, students could select a topic of their choice to do their number riddle on. Afterwards, the teacher could collect the students' number riddles to make a classroom book of rhyming word problems.