TOO MANY PILLOWS
Author: Angela M. Isaacs with the Purdue Early Achievement Research Labs
Illustrator: Matt Dye
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Number of pages: 29
Publisher: Purdue Early Achievement Research Labs First published in: 2021 Format: Picturebook Is the mathematical focus explicit in the story? Yes Is this story part of a mathematics story series? Yes (The Little Elephants' Big Adventures) Preview and/or purchase this book on the Amazon websites: UK, USA, AUS, IND, CAN Synopsis by the author/publisher
Join Lucy, Benjamin, and Bear on their next math adventure. Benjamin is worried he’ll forget something for their camping trip. He has so many things in his backpack that - CRASH - he falls down! They’ll have to work together to lighten both his pack and his worries in this picture book about everyday math and facing your fears.The Little Elephants’ Big Adventures series teaches early childhood math with fun adventures filled with mathematical words. |
“"I packed a lot of pillows," Benjamin said. "I don't want the ground to be hard." "Bear and I packed pillows too!" said Lucy. Bear had a pillow. Lucy had more pillows. Benjamin had the most pillows.”
Official review by MathsThroughStories.org:
Angela M. Isaacs’s ‘Too Many Pillows’ (2021) is a title in the ‘The Little Elephants’ Big Adventures’ series of mathematical stories by the Purdue Early Achievement Research Labs. The story follows Benjamin, Lucy and her cuddly toy named Bear. They are about to leave their home to go on a camping trip, but Benjamin struggles with his heavy camping backpack as it is filled with too many of everything, be it pillows, flashlights or bags of peanuts. Being sensible that she is, Lucy shows Benjamin that she and Bear take fewer of everything, and encourages him to do the same. Throughout the stories, the characters use mathematical vocabularies, such as more, many, most, and a lot. The storyline is age appropriate and does well in embedding these mathematical vocabularies in an everyday situation. To extend the mathematics learning opportunity after having read the story to their young children, teachers and parents can encourage their children to do a bit of role playing with different characters holding different amounts of items whereby they are encouraged to compare the amounts themselves using the aforementioned mathematical vocabularies. Like the other titles in the series (i.e., ‘Just Enough Eggs’ and ‘Picnic with Some Peanuts’), each page spread is accompanied by three questions: red (to be asked after the first reading), blue (to be asked after the second reading), and purple (to be asked after the third reading). The questions are a combination of those that aid young children’s story comprehension skills and those that can help to facilitate their mathematical thinking. Teachers and parents will find this book feature quite useful when reading the story to their children. All in all, we highly recommend ‘Too Many Pillows’ to introduce the concept of measurement comparison to children aged 4+ years old. (Disclaimer: We received a complimentary inspection copy of this book from the publisher/author.)
Recommended age range:
4+ years old
Relevant mathematics topics:
Measurement Comparison
Possible teaching activities:
At MathsThroughStories.org, we believe that stories can be meaningfully incorporated in mathematics teaching in different ways. Thus, we are inviting you to share your experience of how you have used this story in your mathematics lesson with other members of the community. By sharing your experience with us, you will be added to our team of On-line Contributors here, where you can also find our submission guideline.
Angela M. Isaacs’s ‘Too Many Pillows’ (2021) is a title in the ‘The Little Elephants’ Big Adventures’ series of mathematical stories by the Purdue Early Achievement Research Labs. The story follows Benjamin, Lucy and her cuddly toy named Bear. They are about to leave their home to go on a camping trip, but Benjamin struggles with his heavy camping backpack as it is filled with too many of everything, be it pillows, flashlights or bags of peanuts. Being sensible that she is, Lucy shows Benjamin that she and Bear take fewer of everything, and encourages him to do the same. Throughout the stories, the characters use mathematical vocabularies, such as more, many, most, and a lot. The storyline is age appropriate and does well in embedding these mathematical vocabularies in an everyday situation. To extend the mathematics learning opportunity after having read the story to their young children, teachers and parents can encourage their children to do a bit of role playing with different characters holding different amounts of items whereby they are encouraged to compare the amounts themselves using the aforementioned mathematical vocabularies. Like the other titles in the series (i.e., ‘Just Enough Eggs’ and ‘Picnic with Some Peanuts’), each page spread is accompanied by three questions: red (to be asked after the first reading), blue (to be asked after the second reading), and purple (to be asked after the third reading). The questions are a combination of those that aid young children’s story comprehension skills and those that can help to facilitate their mathematical thinking. Teachers and parents will find this book feature quite useful when reading the story to their children. All in all, we highly recommend ‘Too Many Pillows’ to introduce the concept of measurement comparison to children aged 4+ years old. (Disclaimer: We received a complimentary inspection copy of this book from the publisher/author.)
Recommended age range:
4+ years old
Relevant mathematics topics:
Measurement Comparison
Possible teaching activities:
At MathsThroughStories.org, we believe that stories can be meaningfully incorporated in mathematics teaching in different ways. Thus, we are inviting you to share your experience of how you have used this story in your mathematics lesson with other members of the community. By sharing your experience with us, you will be added to our team of On-line Contributors here, where you can also find our submission guideline.
