Math Books + Counters That We Use in Our Homeschool

Check out the Math Books + Counters that we use in our homeschool that helps with teaching math in a natural and relaxed way!I recently took a poll on Instagram, and 100% of you all said that you love to read books about math to your kids, and so do I! And today, I wanted to share with you the books that we read again and again in our homeschool, and what counters we use during our math time! I found that reading to my kids about math was a huge natural step that as gentle and non-invasive, with our unschooling methods. They loved it! And so did I!

11 Math Books We Love to Read

The Five Little Monkeys Go Shopping by Eileen Christelow is a loved book in our home, and every time I read it to the kids they all listen so intently as these little monkeys get into some trouble while shopping with their mommy. Every page has a math problem, with very visual images for the kids to understand and relate to real life experiences.Deena's Lucky Penny by Barbar deRubertis is another fun book that relates to real life experiences when Deena finds a lucky penny and asks her neighbor why a penny is lucky? She explains that it's lucky because when you add a few more pennies, it continues to grow! My children enjoy following the story and her experiences as her friends and family continue to give her more coins, which add very quickly. In the end, Deena has enough money to buy her mom a gift. This story is very relatable for kids who want to learn more about money and addition, as well as the life skill of saving money.What's Up with that Cup? By Sheila Keenan is another fun real-life book for kids to learn how to read a recipe and use measuring cups, and what happens to your recipe when you do not use the right cup! My kids love this story, and we have read it again and again and again!Cyndy Szekere's Counting Book 1-10 is a beautifully illustrated book about a family of mice, that my youngest child has really enjoyed reading over the years. We like to read books like this one, to learn how to count from 1 to 10, in a relaxed way, usually at bedtime.The Action of Subtraction and The Mission or Addition by Brian P. Cleary have been in our house for years, and I am slowly building up this collection because they are easy-to-read rhyming books that really get kids thinking about math!Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin Jr. is another popular book, and for good reason because it's really fun to read!Walt Disney NUMBERS 1-10 by Walt Disney Fun to Read Library has been a joy in our house, because of the familiar characters, and the fun stories on every page. My son loves to count, and this book delivers a great reading experience.Leveled Readers with Learning A-Z (RAZ KIDS) have been a great addition to our homeschool, with a huge digital library for our kids to choose from, books for me to assign them to read each week, and so much more! It is also great to know what level they are reading at and work towards our goals of increasing their abilities.The Sesame Street Library of books which feature letters and numbers is another cherished collection we have and read a lot! They have many different stories, games, activities and even recipes, which I just love, and each book introduces two new letters and one number.My Minecraft Counting Book - by me, Alexandra with Scissors & Glue - this book has been a life saver for my boys, who for a time, refused to try to read much of anything! Counting, reading and coloring their way from 1 to 20 with Minecraft characters has been really fun.These are the books that we have been reading in our homeschool, that have really opened my kids' minds to real-life math experiences, in a natural and fun way. Have you read any of these with your kids?

Playing is Learning

My children love to play, and soon I started to gather a few of their toys that were really small, so they could feel like they were still playing and not doing school, which is what they needed. They each have different things they like to count with.Miss.7 loved the Ooshies and Mr.4 likes dinosaurs and Mr.6 loves dinosaurs and Minecraft Legos. I recycled little chocolate tins from Christmas and made them their math counting tins. We store the small toys and counters in there along with dice, a treat for the week and a laminated 10 Frame. We keep them in their school drawers and they are handy when we pull out a counting book and want to see it in action.

We have recently created 100 Rainbow Rocks for the kids to count, sort, and create with. This project was really fun, and the kids enjoyed helping me with it. It did take a few days to complete, and you can read all about it here in this post. I also shared on IG how we use them to count to 100 with a hundred's chart, plus two YouTube videos as well.

The counters we love to pair with our math books:

1. Ooshies Disney Princesses
2. Dinosaurs
3. Dice
4. Seashells
5. Shopkins
6. Pom Poms
7. 100 Chart
8. 10 Frame
9. Number Line
10. Flashcards
11. 100 Painted Rainbow Rocks

Game schooling is Awesome.

We also play a lot of games in our homeschool, which I will be sharing about in the weeks to come. Our kids have all learned to count, add and subtract from a handful of great educational games that we play regularly. Game schooling is a great way to learn without a curriculum, and since we have been unschooling over this past year, playing games has been a natural way to learn. In fact, mr7 is creating his own board game as we speak, which I am excited to share soon!Our kids love to invent games with almost anything, so I like to let their imaginations go wild and I just go with it.

Minecraft Counting Book My Boys Love.

Our boys love Minecraft and we have been playing this video game regularly for the past few years, in fact, we use it in our homeschool and I have created a Minecraft Counting Book to go along with their games they play and count towards table time and math.It's become a huge hit, and we have other homeschool moms loving the progress they have seen in their children with reading and coloring, something they just didn't see before. You can read about that here. You can also purchase this from my Teachers Pay Teachers Shop!

I love to create printable's for my kiddos to use and learn with.

We even created a Slime Ranger Counting + Story Book for math and reading, that hasn't been released yet... my son created it with me, and it was for him to use daily as well. It was a great project and he and I enjoy working on projects like that together. We are also in the middle of creating a Scribble Counting + Story Book, inspired by I'm Not Just a Scribble, by Diane Alber which we recently reviewed and our kids loved!All in all, unschooling with math is definitely something new to me, and of course, every once in a while I yearn for days of worksheets being completed but, as my daughter puts it, 'my brain is just full mom!' So, we go easy on the worksheets and mostly read, count and play.Thanks for reading today!

What is your favorite children's book about math that your kids love?

Have fun with scissors and glue and math books too,Alexandra

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