Seaweed Soup: A Fun Math Picture Book About Matching Sets and Learning for Kids

MathStart Level 1

by Stuart J. Murphy

“Kids, young and old, fall in love with math when they see how real-life and effortless it becomes thanks to these books.” —Kimberly D. Mueller, Ed.D., First Grade Teacher, Ashbrook School, Lumberton NJ Seaweed Soup  is perfect for teaching matching sets/one-to-one correspondence to pre-K through kindergarteners. As Turtle serves lunch to his reluctant guests, young readers can learn about matching sets (also called one-to-one correspondence) by keeping track of all the different bowls, cups, spoons, and napkins on the table. Kids will love the story and the funny illustrations by Frank Remkiewicz. Parents and other educators will love how the story and pictures make understanding comparisons a breeze—as well as the concrete examples of how math works! The book contains activities for adults to do with kids to extend math into their own lives! Math skills are life skills, and the MathStart series supports success! MathStart's unique combination of stories, illustrations, and visual models helps teachers and parents in the teaching of math and provides all children with the opportunity to succeed. The math concepts taught in MathStart books conform to state and national standards. Level 1 is Pre-K–Kindergarten; Level 2 is Grades 1–3; Level 3 is Grades 2–4. The series follows math topics across grades so there is a foundational path to learning that runs through the levels. Help kids with their math skills  plus  their reading skills with the engaging and fun MathStart series!

Genres: Mathematics, Picture Books, Childrens, Arithmetic, Fiction, Pre K, Juvenile

40 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2001

About the author

PICTURES & WORDS, STORIES & BOOKS
MathStart http://www.mathstart.net
I See I Learn http://www.iseeilearn.com

I was one of those kids who talked all the time in class. I loved telling stories. One day in the 4th Grade, my teacher said, “You tell such good stories, maybe you should try writing some of them down.” “Wow,” I thought. “She thinks my stories are good.” That’s when I started to really enjoy writing.

I was also the class artist. When I wasn’t talking,I was drawing. When I was older, I studied art at the Rhode Island School
of Design. That’s where I became interested in visual learning—how we decode and acquire information from graphs, charts, diagrams, models, illustrations and other images.

I became especially interested in educational publishing and have worked on the development of over a dozen major textbook programs, championing visual learning strategies from Pre-K through high school in every major curriculum area.

MATHSTART

The inspiration to write math stories for children was sparked by my work on a high school mathematics program. Visual learning strategies helped teens—who had been characterized as “reluctant learners’—understand difficult math concepts. Putting math in the context of stories based on their experiences made them feel more comfortable with abstract concepts. They actually became eager to apply math to real-life problems.
If this approach worked for older students, I began to wonder what might happen if younger children were introduced to math this way!

Even before children can read—or speak many words—they can interpret visual information with ease. The MathStart books use simple stories coupled with diagrams, graphs and other visual models to teach everything from probability and pattern recognition to area, capacity and negative numbers.

The Best Bug Parade, (comparing sizes) was my very first published book. It was absolutely thrilling to see my name in print! I never expected that one day there would 63 MathStart books, split over three levels for ages Pre-K to Grade 4.

Each book includes two pages of review and activities designed to help teachers and parents extend learning beyond the story, along with suggestions of related books by other authors. After all, if a child enjoys learning math through stories, then let’s have more stories!
(Pictures, Words & Math: An interview with Stuart J. Murphy )

THE MAIN STREET KIDS' CLUB: A MATHSTART MUSICAL

Now get out your dancing shoes—there is a musical based on six of the MathStart books! The Main Street Kids’ Club was workshopped at Northwestern University and adapted by Scott Ferguson, who also created the perennially popular production of Schoolhouse Rock Live!
The songs are terrific. The math is spot on. And the club motto makes my heart sing: “Math Skills are Life Skills!”

STUART J. MURPHY'S I SEE I LEARN

My latest series of books is focused on young children—Preschool and Kindergarten age.
I See I Learn books teach social, emotional, health and safety, and cognitive skills, such as how to make friends, build confidence, play safely, work together, manage emotions, and make plans. These skills are important for school readiness and for living happy, healthy, productive lives.

The stories “star” a wonderful bunch of friends who live in See-and-Learn City and attend Ready Set Pre-K. The cast includes Freda, Percy, Emma, Ajay, Camille, and Carlos. And, of course, Pickle, the green bull dog—who happens to have a soft-spot for butterflies—and Miss Cathy, their teacher.

I See I Learn stories are modeled on real-life situations and, just as in real-life, often involve more than one skill. For example, Freda Plans a Picnic is about sequencing, a cognitive skill, but the picnic itself is a social event. Percy Plays It Safe focuses on playground safety skills, but playing successfully in a group also requires self-regulation, an emotional skill.

Each book is reviewed by a tea

Reviews

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is another fun story in the MathStart series by Stuart J. Murphy. We like these books; they incorporate math principles into the story and show how math is fun and necessary for everyday life.

This is a fun story about sharing a meal with friends, counting sets of objects, and best of all, trying new food (even if it looks and/or smells awful.) The characters in this story discover that they love the seaweed soup that turtle made and eat it all up! Hooray, I love books that reinforce the concept of trying new foods, with a positive result.

I also liked that math was incorporated into the story seamlessly - we learn without feeling like it's a lesson. We love turtles, so this was sure to be a hit with us; we enjoyed reading this story together.

September 2019 update: I had an opportunity to listen to this book being read aloud with a kindergarten class at the elementary school where I had my first internship as part of my Master of Library and Information Science degree with a School Library Media Specialization program at UMD. The children really got into the story and participated eagerly.

[jacky · Rating 3 out of 5]

A classmate brought this book in as part of her Literacy History presentation on her daughters. This book was really cute. It has a similar theme to Green Eggs and Ham: don't knock something until you try it. It also had cool beach animals, discussed being polite, and covered how to set the table. A turtle was the main character, too :)

After looking at other people's posts, I realized that this book starts to teach math concepts and is part of a whole series of books which do that. Very cool. I often only think about reading early my (future) kids to prepare them for school, but I'm sure that getting some background in math ideas is just as important as well as having fun stories that reinforce the concepts they learn once they are in school.

[Kayla DeRemer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Turtle has just made his mot favorite lunch! And he even made enough for all of his friends to try some too!! But, when they all see the slimy, green soup no one wants to try it. In trying to not hurt Turtles feelings, they all reluctantly try the seaweed soup. After they all try it, they are amazed at how good the soup is. In this story, children can learn to not be afraid to try new things. Because for all they know, they might actually end up liking it.

[Hanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book! It has a repetitive structure that kids like and added along to the story with the addition of each friend. I appreciated that the friends didn’t think that they would like the sewers soup because it smelled yucky…but then they ended up really liking it! A great message about being willing to try new things. Also the moment when you think turtle is really upset that his friends ate up all of the soup without him…but it turns out he was just fetching more seaweed soup.

[mamma.needsabook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a fun and educational story about Turtle, who invites his friends for lunch to try his favorite dish, seaweed soup. As his friends hesitate to try the soup, young readers learn about counting and matching sets. It's a great book for kids learning basic math concepts and the importance of sharing with friends.

[Cori Dantio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cute book to help teach math concepts.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun story about a turtle who shares his favourite soup. Lessons: math, don’t jump to conclusions about whether you like something without trying, share and be gracious.

[Haaley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fun book. I liked the way that it turned out in the end.
It was supposed to be a math book but I didn't really get that other than he didn't have enough tableware.

[Jill Stein · Rating 5 out of 5]

My now-grown kids (24, 22, 18) still refer fondly to this book!

[Lbrown107 · Rating 2 out of 5]

The math concept focuses on matching sets and one-to-one correspondence. While reading aloud, I would ask my students: How many things does each friend need? What are the things each friend needs? How many friends come to eat the soup? So, how many sets of things will turtle have to find?
At first, I really did not like how the object in each set differed. For example: Turtle could not find a cup for his friend, so he used a seashell instead. I thought that this might be confusing, but then I thought that it might lead to a deeper understanding of one-to-one correspondence. If the student can understand that each object, even though they may differ slightly, still belongs the the set.

[Camila · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is cute! Turtle's friends think the soup he made looks gross but they agreed to join him for lunch anyway. Each time a friend joins turtle, he goes to get another set of dinning ware. In the end, his friends try the soup and find that's it actually delicious! This is a great book to introduce sets in math and teaching kids to make text-to-self connections because everyone has probably been hesitant to try a food because it looked yucky!

[Denesha Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book involves basic counting and is for younger age children possibly Pre-school aged or Kindergarten. I really think that the story was very well-written. The pictures are also a plus. Good book for a read aloud and to keep in the class library.

[Julie Webb · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book teaches about sets and one-to-one correspondence

[Christine Turner · Rating 4 out of 5]

As he asks more and more friends to join him for lunch, Turtle must make up sets of dishes to accommodate them. www.hcpl.net

Focus: Sets

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduces the concept of matching sets - like the other MathStart books, contains suggested activities at the end for creative play or further learning opportunities about this topic.

[Jaime Taggart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really cute book about sharing and friends. I really liked the message and my kids liked the story.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

The menagerie of "make do" dishes makes me want to join the party. I hope I could be as willing as Turtle's friends regarding the soup itself. What a lovely character Turtle is!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

i'm a fan of the whole mathstart series.

[Paula · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute little story with a great way to incorporate math concepts.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title makes this book sound like it would be gross to read about but it teaches a really great lesson on sharing and trying new things!

[Esther]

Sets with one-to-one matching.

[Wafer · Rating 5 out of 5]

ok

[Patrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a sweet book this is. One of my family's favorites. Entertaining for all ages.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting way to teach sets