Math for All Seasons

by Greg Tang, Harry Briggs (Illustrator)

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Category: Math Skills

Your challenge is to find the sum
Without counting one by one
Why not count? It's much too slow --
Adding is the way to go!
Make clever groups before you start --
Then add them in a way that's smart!
MATH FOR ALL SEASONS will challenge every kid -- and every parent -- to open their minds and solve problems in new and unexpected ways. By looking for patterns, symmetries, and familiar number combinations within eye-catching pictures, math will become easier, quicker, and more fun than anyone could have imagined!

Genres: Mathematics, Picture Books, Poetry, Nonfiction, Childrens, Counting, Teaching

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book! Each page has a little story problem that coincides with the illustration. It's great for little ones that are learning how to count as well as older kids that are learning addition and subtraction. It doesn't feel like a math book in the traditional sense at all. My kids love it.

[Margaret Chind · Rating 5 out of 5]

Math for All Seasons is my first Greg Tang book, but I believe I will have to seek out a copy of the Grapes of Math. I love the full-color full page word problems that make my kiddo think. My second grade child truly thinks it is neat. I wouldn't hesitate to introduce thus book to a first grader either. We bought this on a school resource recommendation.

[Jillian Green]

Math for All Seasons, written by Greg Tang and illustrated by Harry Briggs. Math for All Seasons is an early concept book that connects varying elements of the four seasons to basic mathematics concepts for emerging learners . Math for All Seasons is written through riddles involving a lot of rhyming, in which each riddle includes a question asking the reader to count the number of objects or dots embedded into the illustrations. For example, after a few rhyming sentences relating to the weather elements shown in the illustration, it will ask a question a long the lines of that season’s illustration, like “How many plants are still in bloom?”. The learner will then have to count the number of dandelions they see in full bloom. The book goes on to hit almost every seasonal element like a snowy landscape, spring flowers and butterflies, or a clear night sky.
In the textbook, Elementary and Middle School Mathematics: Teaching Developmentally, Van de Walle explains multiple recommendations to ensure early math learners recieve a good quality foundation to mathematics. One point that is shown clearly in Math for All Seasons, is “Build on children’s experience and knowledge by using familiar contexts” (Van de Walle 132). This book allows for the children to make direct connections to the world they experience every day, and are learning about at the same time, weather and seasons. It shows them that math can be used every where in our life, especially in simply counting objects and elements they see every day in nature. This further proves van de Walle’s next point to, “Enhance children’s natural interest in mathematics and assist them in using mathematics to make sense of their world” (Van de walle 132). Through the illustrations, and clever riddles, children can learn to develop the concept of basic counting skills through these objects. Furthermore, Van de Walle explains using materials and visuals such as dots allows for children to recognize patterns and quantity, to further build the understanding of counting. While the child is reading this book, you can characterize where they lie in their level of thinking and progression towards this foundational skill, are they counting the objects on their fongers and out loud? Can they group the objects or dots together? Are they skip counting? All of these characteristics can aid in assessing the child’s knowledge of their basic mathematical skills (Van de Walle 135).
Math for All Seasons also provides amazing techniques of scaffolding and multiple representations in the text and in the illustrations. The first major scaffolding technique I noticed was the difference in color of text of the questions posed on each page. If the text asked, “How many dots can you count”, the text appears in a different color that stands out than the rest of the text provided on that page. This is a great way to veer the child’s attention towards the main focus of the page, and support their thinking of how the text and illustrations relate to each other. It is also important to recognize the simpleness of vocabulary in the text, where no word is overly difficult for new readers, to not confuse them on what is being asked. The illustrations in this book can serve as a great support for those students who are a more visual learner, or need more support in their mental math. It is also important to recognize the varying holidays, and ways of life presented in the text, to teach students about different times of the year, what is celebrated, and how they can connect it to their own lives and experiences.
This is definitely a book that would be a great addition the a classroom library for the ages 5-7. Including children’s literature into different subjects in the classroom is, in my opinion, a great way to keep students engaged and interested in other subjects, especially math. The bright and detailed illustrations offer a strong visual aid, and riddles introduce a way the students can engage with the text, as well as a great form of learning about the seasons, and weather elements they can see in their real life and learn more about. It is important to choose children’s books that the students can gain new knowledge on in many different areas, make connections too, and show where they are as a learner as well as provide support for their foundational learning. Math for All Seasons is definitely a book I will be including and reading to a kindergarten to second grade classroom!

[Cindy Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are looking for a way to integrate math and reading in your classroom or at home, then this is the book for you! I was introduced to Greg Tang books when my intern needed to do an author study! Out of many choices, I told her that Greg tang might suit our class. Many students are below grade level in math. When we began reading them aloud, the students were very interested in the books. I had to buy this book for my class first! Some of the kids even wrote down his name so they can go to their local library to find his other books. This book was useful in helping the kids with repeated addition leading to multiplication. Strategies like finding patterns, symmetries and making equally sized groups help with the concept of multiplication and fractions that we are working on in class.

"Math for all Seasons" is kid friendly in that it uses rhyming to bring the message across. Some of the lingo can go over students head but at least they will be prepared when we get to the short poetry unit in third quarter. Moreover, if students can understand and find patterns in math, they can remember strategies taught to assist in solving problems successfully. I will continue to use Greg Tang' books to help assist students move towards being on grade level in math.

[Jordyn Matthews · Rating 3 out of 5]

Math for All Seasons, written by Greg Tang, is a math riddle books that uses the counting of animals and other objects that help children learn math. On each page, there is a situation where the reader has to count up a certain amount of something and solve the riddle of how many there are. The riddles are also based on the seasons that take place through a year.

This book is a great approach to teaching math. Instead of being a regular, boring math textbook, it adds in riddles, a back story, and colorful illustrations to make it more interesting. Because of these aspects, a child would be more likely to pick up this book and want to learn from it. I believe that I could use this book in my classroom by taking the children through each riddle and incorporating it into a math lesson.

Another thing I really enjoyed, as mentioned before, is the colorful illustrations. On each page, including the cover, are bright illustrations of animals, the outdoors, and other objects that really bring the story to life.

[Stephanie Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book teaches children to add creatively rather than count in order to find out how many objects are on each page. I think the skill of looking for patterns to speed count is nicely taught, though it doesn't really coach kids to choose strategies for themselves - it just hints at the particular one they're supposed to use with a riddle. Illustrations and word choice are geared to a young audience, but the riddles are not - so the preschool crowd might enjoy the book but they're just going to count the objects anyway. Older kids (2nd grade and up, probably) will get the riddles.

[Ellie Vasas]

I thought this was cute and colorful. The book leaves room and is big enough so that kids won't struggle to see what they should count. Idioms were also introduced like, "raining like cats and dogs". I think that this is more advanced than for toddlers because you are grouping numbers and and you can add them to get the total or subtract. It has all different places and seasons like Holland, Easter, and scenes in winter etc. I like how the words are on one page and the objects to count are on the other so that you don't get too confused. The rhyme in the poem is nice and flows very good.

[Becky B · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rhyming book of picture puzzles that goes through the seasons and asks readers to count how many of a certain item, and also gives hints how to group the items to make counting easier (by 5s or 3s or so on).

The back of this book has visual guides for what the rhyme was trying to prompt readers to do. I would make copies of some of these pages or get some of those clear overlays (or even clear post-its) so kids could draw on them and group them in different ways to make visualizing the groupings easier. Also, that way you can point out to them there’s more than one way to group.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a great book to give to students struggling with dividing or grouping numbers. I felt that it can be a fun alternative to doing math problems. Even though this book has math problems it does it in a fun interactive way. The illustrations are used to help with the math problems. It gives a visual to the word math problem.

[Anne Dulzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genre: Poetry
Unique Feature: Introduces students to math and poetry for younger students. It shows pictures to help them do math problems, patterns in the pictures and gives them hints and tips on how to solve the problems.
Grade Levels: I would probably say kindergarten and or first grade. Most of the problems are just counting or adding problems.

[Villain E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seasonally thematic images to count. Items are presented in organized ways, such as a three by three square, which let you figure out the amount mathematically rather than simply counting them. The text rhymes.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very simplistic. Suited to pre-school or kindergarten.

[🎲🎧❤️CHanCE💔🎼🎲 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it has really good poems

[Jane]

pictures are fictional

[Herold Homeschool · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love all Greg Tang books makes math fun!

[Vo Khon · Rating 3 out of 5]

ADDTION - REGROUP
Using poem to describe and ask.
Group things to add.
A book alike The grapes of math

[Christina Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

May is learning about Spring. A simple intro into math. Depending on the level of the child, you can do simple counting or simple math.

[Anya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fun book for little kids who are learning to add or to multiply simple numbers under 20.

[L.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book, but my kindergartener can’t do it all at once yet, and she wasn’t thrilled about my mixing reading with math 😜 Will check out again next year.

[Katy Bosch]

Wishlist

[Josephina · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO MUCH FUN!!!

[Christine Turner]

Greg Tang follows up the fun, innovative, New York Times bestseller GRAPES OF MATH with his second uproariously punny math book and this time with a theme of seasons and a focus on groups of fives. Children will look for patterns, symmetries, and familiar number combinations within eye-catching pictures; math will become easier, quicker, and more fun than anyone could have imagined!

[Taylor Horvat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personal Reaction: When my math teacher brought this book into our math lab this semester, I really loved it. My favorite part about this book was the riddles. Each page has a wonderful picture that kids have to refer to to figure out the riddle in a clever way. I really liked how each math problem has a poem with it for a certain season of the year. This is a fun alternative to counting that kids will be engaged with more than worksheets or a lecture on counting. My favorite part about this book is that is approaches math in a new way by connecting it to a riddle and a picture, making it fun to learn how to count!

Use & Purpose in the Classroom: This book is a great way to introduce kids to teaching with a read aloud and then also just keeping the book in your bookshelf the rest of the year. This book would be great in a classroom of kindergarten to first graders. After hearing and working through some of the problems in this book, I could ask students to work together to make their own math poems regarding counting. Another great resource associated with this book is a website with examples from the book here: http://www.gregtangmath.com/books_sea... If your classroom has technology, you could have students work on iPads or computers and go through some of these online math problems that are similar to the ones in the book to further develop learning about counting

Other: This book teaches counting in multiple ways. It illustrates counting in pictures by grouping different objects together to get students to see that if they group things together, they can count in a different way than counting one by one. Providing a new way of counting that is more fun and for some students, easier, keeps students engaged and ready to learn about counting.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

My personal reaction of the book was that it has alternatives to what we normally do in math. They are asking for you not to count. Which i like. For example, "Your challenge is to find the sum
Without counting one by one Why not count? It's much too slow." Adding is the way to go! Not only do you have to critically think about the problem but it forces you to find a new way to solve it. I think children will see the real world examples of how math is used everyday.

The purpose of this book would be independent reading for finding alternative ways to solve math problems. This book would be suitable for third graders. I would use this book to help my students creativity think about math. Make it more fun and helps find new ways to solve math problems. I would not read the whole book to them simple do a problem a day that corresponds to the lesson i planned. Also with each problem came a different season of the year. Incorporating seasons in this "math" book allows the children to learn without even realizing. This book incorporates lots of riddles that hook the students engagement.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a series of math problems, each with a poem relating to a time of the year. The math problems are all pretty similar. Rather than just count the objects, the author wants your child to group the objects. So there might be three rows of five objects: 5+5+5=15 or two rows of three objects and one row of two objects: 3+3+3=9-1=8

All the problems are simple for an adult, but sometimes I didn't quite know what the author was aiming at, so I always looked at the answer key in the back before doing the problem with my son.

My six year old said he really liked this book, so I gave it four stars.
One thing though: It's hard to force your child to count the way the author wants the objects to be counted. Often my son would count them, them I would explain the way using addition.

We didn't do this book straight through. I would sometimes pull it out and we would do one problem and put it away. It took about a month to finish the book.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is fun mental math. It utilizes addition and some simple subtraction, and some riddles even hint at multiplication (such as five and five and five). For each riddle there is a picture and the child has to figure out the answer in the "clever way" that the riddle requires. A lot of the answers add up to 10, 15 and 20, and then sometimes subtract one or two. My six year old (first grader) who is good at grasping math concepts had no problem figuring out the answers and had fun with it. Good way to deepen child's understanding of addition and subtraction. My one dislike about the book is that it mostly adds up to multiples of five, and I would have liked a little more variation, and maybe a couple harder riddles. I wish there were multiple books for this age, but the author only has one on this level so far. There are two books with simpler math and a few for older kids. We will be looking at some of those.

[Kayla Heenan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal Reaction:
I enjoyed this book but it was not one that I was jumping for joy over. I thought that the book would be good for a math lesson but it would not be a must. I did enjoy the illustrations and the creativity in the book, especially the humor that went into it.
Purpose/Use in Classroom:
This would obviously be a book that I would read aloud to my students during the math unit about addition. I could have students involved in the story as much if not more than I would be by helping me read and answering problems. When it comes to reading this story individually I could see students in the second grade reading it. Also particularly the students who needed extra help when it comes to addition.
Elements:
The illustrations played a major part. It allowed students to see how things were being added rather than just reading about it. Books like this one are perfect for the visual learner. In regards to math, this is a good book to keep in the classroom.

[Chelsea Bucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book teaches children how to problem solve. It is written in a riddle format. Readers are taught to think about many approaches to make addition and subtraction easy to solve. They are taught to simplify problems by looking for patterns. Ex: One page says: "How many tulips are in bloom? Mixing colors is the way to make a really smart bouquet! The page shows different groups of tulips that are clumped together in ones, twos, and by color: pink, orange, and yellow. Each page's theme also goes in order of the months of the year. This is a pattern that should look familiar to students. The pictures are very bright and engaging to look at. I like that the hints in the riddles are teaching strategies that help the reader solve that particular problem. The answer and strategies are located in the back of the book.

[Annette Ruane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fun riddle book that helps kids read and count at the same time! Along with reading and counting, this book also introduces the seasons and relates math to each one.
I like this book because it taught two things that are vital to any young elementary classroom, seasons and counting, I liked how the book is simple and maintains a theme of how each page is set up. I like the contrasting pictures and how the booked covered all parts of every season. This text can help build your knowledge on math as well as the seasons. I would personally use this book in my classroom to introduce each new season then let the kids practice their counting skills by answering the counting question each page asks. If I could ask the author of this book anything I would ask them; what was the inspiration behind connecting seasons and math?

[April Poulter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not your typical counting/math book. Math For All Seasons and Grapes of Math are great for teaching children about addition, subtraction, and multiplication! Each page contains a rhyme that challenges you to count something on the page, and each rhyme gives a hint as to how to count them in the most efficient way. Then, in the back of the book it has mini pictures diagramming how to count efficiently by grouping the items in the picture together instead of counting one-by-one. Brilliant!
I have one of those brains that doesn't do math well and I admit that I even still count with my fingers sometimes... I think that I would have benefited greatly from this book as a child because it would have helped me to conceptualize math better. I would recommend this to parents and teachers who are teaching their children to add, subtract, and multiply.