#3166. Crictor Teaching Basic Math Concepts

Mathematics, level: Pre-School
Posted Mon Mar 15 10:23:51 PDT 2010 by Alisha England (Alisha England).
ODU Prek-6 licensure student, Richlands USA
Materials Required: play dough, the book "Crictor", wooden or plastic blocks, graph worksheets
Activity Time: 30+ minutes
Concepts Taught: forming numbers, counting, measuring, graphing

Crictor by Tomi Ungerer is a story about a French lady who receives a snake as a gift for her birthday. After reading this book I could use the following activities with grades PreK-1 to teach or review some basic math concepts.

Activity 1: Forming Numbers

The snake in the story can take on various shapes. Children will be asked to create a green play dough snake and attempt to correctly form numbers 1-9. The working together the children can attempt to make numbers 10-20

Activity 2: Measure and Compare

Students will see who can make the longest play dough snake. The teacher will introduce the words "measure" and "compare" to the students before beginning the activity. Then the teacher will measure and compare each green play dough snake using simple blocks (wooden or plastic) as her "measuring" tool. Students will be able to see and answer the following questions: Which snake (or snakes) measured with the most blocks? Which snake (or snakes) measured with the least or fewest blocks?

Activity 3: Graphing

The children will learn how to color in a simple graph to represent the length of the snakes during this activity. A blank chart will be given to the students so that they can color in one block for each block used to measure their very own play dough snakes created. This activity will help prepare them for creating, understanding, and graphing simple data.