Tag: mission addition

Publication Info: Holiday House, 1997

Intended audience: Kindergarten – Grade 2

Genre: nonfiction picture book

Themes/topics: math

“It was a stormy day, and Miss Prime’s classroom was dark.

‘I’m going to show you just the facts — the addition facts.

Suppose you’re a detective and you find two fingerprints, then you find three more.

Here’s how you write the addition fact with numbers:

2 + 3 = 5’”

 Miss Prime’s class solves all kinds of addition problems, from adding up how many pets they have to summing their restaurant bills.

Why I like this book: Loreen Leedy makes math fun. Here’s the proof: my 5-year-old has requested Mission Addition over and over and over again. And seeing math as fun rather than a slog is a good thing. A recent study showed attitude — yours and your child’s — plays a major role in how successful your children are at math. See Annie Murphy Paul’s column about the study by Andrew Martin of the University of Sydney. With that in mind, I am always on the lookout for fun math books like Leedy’s as well as those of David Schwartz and Ann McCallum.

Resources: On Leedy’s site, she recommends having children add up all the living creatures in their homes, for example family members and pets. You could also replicate some of the activities from the book. Draw a picture  and encourage your children to write a word problem based on the picture. Then solve it. Or help your children weed out old clothes and toys and host a garage sale. Let them add up how much they make from their sales. Leedy also has a handout with Mission Addition activities available on her site (NOTE: It also includes activities from her other early books).

Every Friday bloggers review “Perfect Picture Books.” Find a complete list of book reviews organized by topic, genre and blogger at author Susanna Leonard Hill’s site.