Kids Math: Tyrannosaurus Math

Tyrannosaurus Math by Michelle Markel was in the math section of the library.  I thought it sounded interesting.  My son was into dinosaurs before but hasn't been really interested in a little while so I wasn't sure how it was going to go.  The cover looked bright and fun so what could it hurt.

In this book, Tyrannosaurus Math (nicknamed T-math) is born and shortly after starts counting his fingers and toes and adding them up.  Then, he has two brothers and three sisters born so he adds them up.  He counts by twos when he sees foot prints.  He learned 5's and 10's to count herds of triceratops.  He started to become a show off because he counted his food and then declared who at the greater number and what the difference was.  He also checked his work.  The lizard grew bigger and his math skills became greater and his mind was as sharp as his teeth.  On to multiplication where he taught other dinosaurs how to figure out what they wanted to know.  There was a hurricane, meteorite and a volcano that adds to the excitement and the math but his family was getting irritated with his know it all behavior.  On day the ground cracked and his sister was stuck on the other side of a deep canyon.  After careful thought, T-math estimated that the width was about 20 of his feet so he found a fallen tree that was 20 foot steps long and laid it across the gap so that he sister could walk to safety.  She decided that math was useful and his brother said that he wanted to learn some of his brothers tricks.  After that, there was no problem that this family couldn't solve.

We enjoyed reading the book and it was perfect for learning a lot of different things about math.  It showed the picture that you could count but it also showed the mathematical formula.  I think that it is priceless to introduce kids to what it looks like even before they know what to do with the signs and symbols because it gets them interested.  It also counts by twos which is currently my son's favorite ways to count.  He also counts by 5's and 10's which is a fun one to practice with high fives and high tens (my son's name for two hands at the same time).  The best part is when they do the larger math and they show how you can check your math by adding it the numbers.  There is multiplication with pictures so that you can figure it out.

We did some addition and subtraction after reading the book.  I always try to work in a little bit with everything we do and my son is really catching on.  We picked out three books and just added two more to the pile so how many do we have.  Sometimes I get the quick answer and sometimes he wants to count the books but either way, he is doing math.  Make sure you take the time to do math with your kids because it really is fun and it will help them later in life!!

If you want to do a sit down activity, there are tons of activity books at the dollar store that have addition or subtraction for all ages.  If you want to make your own, you can use the bingo marker to make dots to add and they have to do dots or write the number for the answer.  We have also done it with stickers, I had some neat number stickers and then he just had to write the answer (mostly because I didn't have enough stickers).  If you have a few dinosaurs, pull them out and add and subtract with them.  There are tons of easy math activities out there so that your kid can be a T-math too!!!

 I hope that you try out this book the next time you are at your local library or bookstore because it is bound to entertain.  I know that we enjoyed all of the different kinds of math and I am sure that you kids will love seeing how you do need it to live (not that the dinosaurs did since they are extinct but that is a whole other lesson).