This week, I chose to look at the children’s book ‘Ten Apples Up On Top’, by Dr. Seuss.
The book explores many mathematical concepts, such as:
- Counting to 10
- Counting forwards
- Counting backwards
- Counting in ones
The majority of the mathematical language which is explored within the book, is the written words for the numbers one, through to ten. I feel that this makes the book perfectly suited to the early years, when introducing and reinforcing counting.
Props which I felt could be used alongside the book are:
- The apples. Children could use apples, like in the story, and count how many they have. The numbers of apples should vary when comparing the amount of apples each child has. The children can practice addition and subtraction, for example – ‘If I have 4 apples and give away/receive 2, how many do I have now?’
- The children can then move on to practicing with numbers higher than 10, when they reach an appropriate level.
The vocabulary which is used throughout this book seems fairly suitable for an early years classroom, as the mathematical language which is used is mostly only for the numbers one to ten. However, if I was to use this book in the classroom, I would keep a focus on the sentence structures within the book, as sentences are often structured differently to what we would expect, in order to fit the rhyme. It would be important, especially within an early years environment, that the children do not begin to follow those patterns within their everyday writing.
