If you hang around here often, you know that I love read alouds! Not only do you get to connect with your students and model reading with fluency, you can introduce and reinforce important concepts across all subjects. This includes math! I love using math read alouds to help introduce tricky topics to my students. One of the first math concepts we covered was numeracy. I found that numeracy read alouds really helped make the concepts I taught more concrete for my students.
If you’re ready to dive into numeracy, I put together a list of numeracy read alouds for you to check out and use with your class. These will help you introduce and reinforce counting, comparing numbers, ordering numbers, and place value.
When it comes to numeracy, the broad definition is the ability to understand and work with numbers. But what does that look like in a primary classroom? For our young learners, numeracy means learning what numbers are, what they represent, how they relate to each other, and how they work together in basic operations.
We want our students to learn different ways to represent numbers, order them, and be able to subitize. Our students are writing numbers and different ways to represent them and building sets of objects. This also leads to the basics of place value. Then, we move towards comparing groups of objects and comparing numbers. Helping develop strong numeracy skills will provide a strong foundation for their growing math skills.
If you’re looking for a great numeracy activity that’s always a hit with students, I do have a FREE subitizing game called Animal Run. You can grab it below!
Read alouds are such a great way to introduce and reinforce math concepts. Not only do you get to integrate reading and writing, but students get exposed to important vocabulary in context. These are some of my favorite numeracy read alouds that your students will love, too!
First, I’d recommend Just Enough Carrots. This book is a great way to introduce comparing numbers before adding and subtracting. In this book, a little rabbit and his mom go shopping for carrots and end up comparing their cart to other animals’ carts.
You can use this numeracy read aloud to reinforce sequencing and understanding numbers in a concrete way. In this story, an uncle wants to take a photo of all of the cousins in age order, but something goes wrong.
Use this math read aloud to help get your students thinking and talking about numbers and sets of objects. It’s a great way to introduce number talks, too!
Next, you can use this numeracy read aloud to help introduce place value. It introduces lots of vocabulary associated with place value, too. It’s about monkeys who want to bake a banana cupcake and learn that place value is important. This book does go into place value after the decimal, so you may want to skip those pages for K-2 learners.
Can you tell I love Stuart Murphy’s books yet? This is a great book to help introduce comparing numbers. It’s about a game where a student tries to guess the age of others by asking questions. It’s a great one to kick off your numeracy unit with!
Finally, this numeracy read aloud can help you introduce comparing numbers with symbols. This rhyming book is about an alligator named Alfie who takes his friends on a journey to find the largest numbers.
One great activity to start with is an anchor chart to introduce/reteach students that there are so many different ways to represent numbers. This can serve as a reference point for students to use throughout this unit of study.
Another activity to help build an understanding of numbers is subitizing. You can use dot flashcards, dice flashcards, and ten frame flashcards to help students be able to easily recognize numbers.
Next, you can use cards and have students match up numbers and their expanded forms. This is a great way to reinforce different ways we can represent numbers.
Finally, you can use math flip books in interactive notebooks or as a stand-alone book to teach place value. These can be done in a whole group, centers, or even as an independent activity. I love any opportunity to include a little writing in math!
If you’d like to have three full weeks worth of numeracy activities all in one resource, I can help! The Numeracy to 30 unit is packed with activities to support number sense, comparing numbers, and place value.
You’ll find teaching resources like teaching posters, a lesson planning guide, and an anchor chart. Then, you’ll have whole group activities, center activities, and independent activities. Your students will have tons of opportunities to practice numeracy and fully grasp this concept.
You can find all of this inside of Numeracy to 30. Head over to my shop to take an in-depth look at what’s included inside of this jam-packed resource!
I’m a K-1 teacher who is passionate about making lessons your students love and that are easy to implement for teachers. Helping teachers like you navigate their way through their literacy block brings me great joy. I am a lifelong learner who loves staying on top of current literacy learning and practices. Here, you’ll find the tools you need to move your K-2 students forward!
