Math Monday: 10 Piranhas

Welcome to a new feature on my blog. Math Mondays. (We'll see how long it lasts) I have been trying to do some fun stuff with math this year using literature. I love books and love all opportunities to bring in books with every subject area. One of the major components of the common core math is for students to decompose and compose numbers. So as we've been working on numbers I've tried to provide students with opportunities to do just that. I found the book 10 Sly Piranhas at the library and knew I had to check it out.

I read the book and used goldfish to act the story out using my part/part whole mat. After I read the story, I sent the kids back to their tables with a part/part whole mat and 10 goldfish. They then helped me to act the story out and I recorded the equations on the board. Then my lesson went a little haywire. I gave each student a half sheet of paper and wanted them to show me a way to make 10 by drawing fish with 2 different colored crayons. It was a little crazy but did give me an idea of who knew what we were doing. Here a few pictures of their work:

The first two pictures were pretty good. The first picture the student really came up with his own combination for 10 and the second one used the example I had on the board. Then the last one was one of my ELL students. He doesn't always get what we are doing when I am so open ended. I think if I had done a little advanced planning I could have come up with a worksheet for them to use that would have enabled them all to be more successful. So I've got a sheet to share with you so you can do this lesson in your class and be more successful.
Click here to get the freebie. 
If you download the freebie, I would love to hear how the lesson goes in your room. What books do you use when teaching math? Leave me a comment with your favorite ones.