Kids Math: Elevator Magic Book and activities

Elevator Magic, Level 2 (MathStart Subtracting) (MathStart 2) by Stuart J. Murphy was in my pile of books that was recommended.  I picked it up at the library and was really excited to check it out.

In this book, Ben meets up with his mother and they take the elevator down but they have to make a few stops.  The first stop is the bank which is two floors down so he chose the 8th floor because 10-2= 8.  When they got off the elevator, there was oinking and mooing because it was the Farm Bank and Trust.  My son laughed and I asked him if we had animals at our bank and he said no.  Then, back to the elevator to drop off a package at the Speedway Delivery.  They were on 8 and 3 floors down meant that they had to go to the 5th floor.  There was rumbling and screeching when the elevator opens and there is a race about to start.  After that, they make their next stop at the Hard Rock Candy Store which is only one floor down and he does the math and presses the 4th floor.  There was lots of banging and booming and there was a rock band playing.  Ben got a treat and they were going to meet his dad on the first floor.  They only had three more floors to go.  There was honking and beeping noises from the street and he couldn't wait to tell his dad about all the fun stuff he did.

We really enjoyed the book because it talked about.  My son liked talking about all of the stops that the elevator made and all the fun that the kid had riding the elevator with his mother.  We didn't have any plans to travel to an elevator anytime soon so we did the next best thing, we decided to do an activity at the house.  In the back of the book, there are some other questions and activities that you can do with the book and after reading it.  You can work math into anything like having a snack and asking them if they eat two of them, how many will be left.  There is also a list of other books that you can read that talk about the same concepts in this book including Anno's Counting House by Mitsumasa Anno, or Number One, Number Fun by Kay Chorao or A Bag Full of Pups by Dick Gackenbach.  It is always great to work a few other books into the lesson plan at the same time.

I found a blog that had some activities that she suggested.  If you would like her original forms, please check out her website here.  We decided to do this activity.  My son said that he was on the 10th floor and went down 5 floors to be on the 5th floor because he wanted to go to the bank.  He drew a picture of him getting a lollipop at the bank which is his favorite part.  He wrote some of the words at the bottom and asked me to write some of the others.

 I hope that you check out this book and do a few fun activities like visit a building with elevators so that they can press the button to go up some floors and another to go down some floors.  I don't know about you but I don't have all my errands all in one building so it does take me a little longer to get them done but hopefully their is somewhere that you can travel in the elevator even if it isn't to go to the bank!  Pick this up the next time you are at the library or bookstore.  I hope that you enjoy it as much as we did.