Sheila Brune

Theme

: Flowers

Math Concept

: Counting, Addition, and Subtraction

Objective

: The children will be able to complete and create
addition and subtraction facts up to 20 using
the illustrative book

Counting Wildflowers

.

Grade Level

: 1-3

Materials:



Counting Wildflowers


by Bruce
McMillan, New York: Lothrop, Lee and Shephard, 1986

This textbook contains illustrations of many different types of
flowers. The teacher may want to try to gather a few of these
types to be used as hands-on manipulatives.

Activity:

1. Each page in the book contains a different type of flower
   which is respresented by circles at the
   bottom of the page. On the first page the Fragrant Water Lily
   is represented by white circles. Ask the
   students how many circles are green. On the board, write the
   equation 1+9=10. Continue to discuss
   the circles with the children as you read the book.
2. At the bottom of page 11, there are 20 circles. Covering
   up the red circles that represent the
   Maltese cross blossoms, ask the children how many circles are
   left. Have them write their own
   equations.
3. On page 17, there are 17 circles representing the black-eyed
   Susans in the picture. Ask the children
   how many more black-eyed Susans would have to be in the
   picture in order to have 20.
4. Ask the children to figure out how many flower blossoms are
   shown in the entire book. They can work in pairs too formulate
   their answer. Then the entire class can discuss their different
   strategies used.
5. Many other addition and subtraction problems can be created
   from the illustrations in the book.
6. Have the students write their own problems and then test their
   partner. Encourage the students to draw pictures if they need
   help solving the problems.

Extension Activity:

The teacher could gather together
many different types of flowers for the students to work with.
She passes out a variety of flowers to each student and assigns
values for each flower. The students will then play the

Bouquet
Game

. In this game, the students try to make a bouquet of
flowers that has the greatest value. The students can trade with
each other to acquire the flowers with the greatest values. The
person with the most valuable bouquet wins the game and gets to
keep his or her bouquet. This activity can be done right before
mother’s day and the students can take their bouquets home as
presents.

Adaptation

: It may get expensive buying these flowers
so you may find a friend that has a flower garden. Another idea,
is for the students to draw or find pictures of various flowers.

Source

: Braddon, Kathryn, Hall, N., and Taylor, D.


Math
Through Literature


, (1993 ), Englewood, CO., Teacher
Ideas Press