Fun Math Activities: A Carton of Oops and Bunny Money

I am slowly going through this living math reading list and enjoying making up activities to go with them.

One Carton of Oops (Math concepts covered: addition and subtraction) is about a boy's misadventures in transporting a dozen eggs from the store to his house. I didn't have any egg manipulatives, so I grabbed a bunch of jewels from a Montessori sorting activity and put it on a tray, and Koko and I counted our way to the ending. If you wanted, you could use those plastic Easter eggs in an actual carton, too. So much fun and really painless. I also thought it was sweet how the mom was so supportive of his mishaps.

Bunny Money (Math concepts covered: addition and subtraction) by the wonderful Rosemary Wells has Max spending Ruby's preciously saved money intended for their grandma's birthday gift. She starts out with $15 bunny dollars ($5 bill plus ten singles) and Max's lucky quarter but after one day of spending, is left with zero.

I used the five bead from the bead stair plus ten golden unit beads and a coin quarter to do this activity. I also "exchanged" the five bead for five unit beads to help make the concept of having change more concrete. Finally, in the story, Ruby is confronted with the fact that the intended gift for grandma, a music box which costs one hundred dollars is over her budget. And since I had the one hundred chain, I used it to visually show Koko how much a hundred is.

Of course, you could do something similar without Montessori equipment. Rosemary Wells has cute "bunny money" dollar bills intended for photocopying.

Two other counting books that look interesting!