Sunday, April 14, 2013

Mentor Text Linky (math-division with remainders)

It's Sunday and time to link up with Collaboration Cuties for their awesome mentor text linky.  You have to check out the new page on their blog where they are organizing all the mentor texts linked up each week by subject!  What a wonderful tool for teachers to refer to.
The topic this week is math mentor texts.
I am linking up one of my favorite math mentor texts for 4th grade, 
A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes.  

In this book, there is a regiment of 25 beetles on a parade.  Their queen likes to keep things "tidy" and when the bugs march two by two, she notices that one bug doesn't have a partner.  The bug left out, "Joe", has to stand aside rather than be a remainder.  On the days that follow, Joe tries dividing the beetles into groups of 3 and 4, but it still doesn't work out.  He finally makes it work with groups of five!  The same beetles appear throughout the book and students love to "spot" certain beetles as they move through the text.  
The illustrations by Bonnie MacKain are colorful and full of energy.

Remainders are a difficult concept for my fourth graders and this helps them to realize what a "remainder" actually means.  This lends itself well to word problems when students must interpret the remainder for their answer.  
For example, when presented the problem, "There are 25 beetles lined up in 4 rows with the same number of beetles in each row.  How many beetles are in each row?", students are more likely to respond, "Six beetles are in each row with one left out!" rather than, "6 R1 beetles".  

Here is a video read aloud of the story on Teacher Tube!

Check back at Collaboration Cuties for all the other math mentor text link ups today!


8 comments:

  1. I think I own this book and have not really looked at it or used it - now I just feel foolish. Remainder is hard - I have had students just erase the extra one or a whole row if it is not equal in an array, argh!

    Looking From Third to Fourth

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  2. I use this book to introduce division to my kiddos too. It is cute to watch my kiddos personalities come out while I read, a few of them really start to feel bad for Joe!
    Hunter's Tales from Teaching

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  3. Love this book!! I think I have it too, but somehow forgot to use it this year. :(
    Jivey
    ideas by jivey

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  4. We are going to tackle division next week in my third grade classroom so thank you for reminding about this little book! Also, the video link is great! I am your newest follower having found your blog thru the Collaboration Cuties linky!

    Carol

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  5. That's such a fun book to read aloud. I love the little chants "Hup two three four!"

    Sarah
    MissKinBK

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  6. This book is a great way for students to see what a remainder actually is! I love to connect math and reading. Thanks for sharing (and the video link!)

    Jennifer
    Mrs. Laffin's Laughings

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  7. I LOVE this book for teaching remainders!!! It's so cute and the kids love it. I mostly used it in 3rd when I was introducing remainders and we used tiles or counters to work it out as we went. Such a cute book! I may need to pull it out next year with my 4th graders since they struggled this year!

    Thanks for linking up, friend! :O)
    Amanda
    Collaboration Cuties

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  8. Holly,
    I just wanted to let you know that I saw your TpT store listed on the TpT front page Featured Teacher! I was excited to see your store featured. I hope it brought you some great sales!

    Kelly
    Teaching Fourth

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