Earth Day--Hooray!: A Springtime Book For Kids – Teaching Math and Place Value Through Recycling for Children (Ages 6-10)

MathStart: Level 3 #15

by Stuart J. Murphy, Renee Andriani (Illustrator)

“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 Earth Day—Hooray!  is perfect for teaching place value to second, third, and fourth graders. Earth Day is on the way, and Ryan, Luke, and Carly have a plan. If they manage to collect and recycle 5,000 aluminum cans, they can make enough money to buy some beautiful flowers for nearby Gilroy Park. CAN they do it? Counting the cans gives Ryan, Luke, and Carly—along with readers—a lesson in place value. And facts about recycling throughout the story will help readers understand how important it is to take care of the earth. Kids will love the story and the illustrations by Renée Adriani. Parents and educators will love how the story and pictures make understanding the math concepts 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, Science, Childrens, Nonfiction, Environment, School

40 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2003

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

[Hákon Gunnarsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

On 22d of April 2020 was the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the United States. This book is not quite so old, but it’s not new either. Essentially it is a nice celebration of Earth Day.

It’s about Ryan, Luke, and Carly who are trying to collect and recycle 5,000 aluminum cans, so they can make enough money to buy some beautiful flowers for nearby Gilroy Park, which they had begun by cleaning of trash.

The story is an educational one, both about math, and recycling. I think it is a nice one, flows quite well, and has an okay plot. It’s basically education with characters, plot and the occasional joke thrown in for good measure. Pretty good.

[Becky B · Rating 3 out of 5]

After helping clean up a local park, the kids at an elementary school want to also plant some flowers. They realize they could turn in the cans they picked up, recycle them, get some money from it, and maybe have enough to buy flowers. But they soon realize it will take a lot of cans. Can they get enough people to recycle cans to be able to buy some plants?

On top of talking about recycling and Earth Day, the book talks about place value. To count how many cans they have gotten for the can recycling drive, the kids sort them regularly into bags of 10, 100s, and 1000s. Readers may be concerned that the bags used are plastic (because they use a lot and they kinda look plastic-ish...which would be ironic in an Earth Day book) but they don't actually say what the bags are made of, so maybe they are fabric.

[Christian Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book help kids understand the importance of the Earth and also how to keep things clean around them. It shows them how you should keep your environment clean and be thankful for the this world. This book even can make them want to start throwing parties to celebrate earth and bring the community together as one and speak on different ways how to keep earth clean.

[Taylor McDiffett · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how this book combined a story and mathematics into one story. I also liked how they made hard work and cleaning our environment important. I think this book would a good way to introduce the base of tens system to children.

[Kaitlyn Kluesner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is about three friends collect and recycle cans to celebrate Earth Day. They want to use the money they make to plant flowers in the park. This is a great story that shows an example of how some cultures celebrate Earth Day.

[Aimee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this to my daughter (autistic 22 year old) - cute graphics and tons of information- I really liked all of the statistics but they were a little out of date. The story was mostly about recycling.

[Liam · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked this book because it talked about Recycling. I learned about recycling cans. I want to recycle too.
-Liam (age 6)

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dual math (place value) and ecology (recycling, mainly aluminum) message.

The story is a little forced.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good topic by a favorite author.

[Erin Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book with my 3rd graders in preparation for our Earth Day Celebration Field Trip (shoutout to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources for such an amazing event) that was on April 19th! This was such a fun book and gave several ideas for helping protect our planet as well as tying in some math concepts!

[Kristin · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason when I picked up this book I didn't expect myself to enjoy it, but surprisingly I did! Something I didn't expect myself to find was all of the math in this book! There were so many chances for the reader to improve their counting skills and even take a look at place value. Not only do students benefit from the math practice, there is also a chance for them to learn more about keeping the earth clean. Just from these two lessons I would already give this book a great rating but the book goes even further than that. A book that only talks about math and the environment has a huge chance to be boring but that was not the case with Earth Day Hooray! The pages were colorful and exciting so that students would stay engaged with what was going on. I would suggest this book to early elementary level students and it is a great book for teachers to use in their classroom. Not only will this story keep your students entertained during reading time but there are so many additional activities that they can participate in after this story is read. I really enjoyed every aspect of this book.

[Amber Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. Earth Day is a story about three friends, Carly, Ryan, and Luke, who want to gather cans in order to make enough money to help clean up their local park and make it pretty again. They set out with a goal of gathering 5,00 cans. In order to make the counting process easier, they grouped the cans in bags of 10's, 100's, and 1,000's. As they collect their cans, the friends keep track of how many they gathered so far. Each time they gathered additional cans, the friends had to regroup, and they showed it on the log which kept the total number of cans collected thus far. I would use this book with second and third grade students so they can practice their two to three digit addition and regrouping skills.

[Samantha Hagler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryan, Carly, and Luke had to gather 5,000 cans to be able to collect enough money to buy flowers to plant at the front of Gilroy Park where Earth Day celebration would be taking place. This book is a great way to show how math is used in real world experiences. It teaches about place value, as well as ties in an economic lesson about recycling. The cans were bundled together in groups of 10s, 100s, and 1,000s. Each time the kids gathered more can they would show a diagram of how they needed to group the new cans and re-group the old cans. A good extension activity would be to write a 3 digit number on the board and have the students draw bundles of cans to represent the number. This book would be appropriate for 1st-3rd.

[J-Lynn Van Pelt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book serves as both an Earth Day celebration and a math lesson in place value for large numbers. The main story follows three students and their involved teacher who form the Save-the-Planet Club and want to collect 5,000 cans to recycle so that they can buy flowers to decorate the local park. As they collect cans there are plenty of opportunities for readers to practice counting by 10s, 100s, and 1000s. There are also random facts about the history of Earth Day and recycling throughout the pages. The story ends with an Earth Day Festival at the park where they plant the flowers.

The illustrations are painted, realistic cartoons.

[Alexis Levine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earth Day-- Hooray! is another one of Stuart J. Murphy's excellent books from his math series. In this book, students collect cans and are trying to get 3,000 cans so they can make a park pretty. This book would be great to use for both math and science because they are discussing recycling and the environment as well as counting by tens, ones, hundreds, and even thousands. Students can use this book for Georgia GPS S3L2 possibly and discuss recycling of materials and conservation of resources. This book would be good for students in grades second of third!

[Candace Roberson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story showed a great lesson about working hard and how cleaning our environment is so important. There were very informative facts mentioned in the book for the reader. The story was well written and can be inspiring to may other students at different school who might want to do the same tasks as these children did. This is also a great book for adults,as well as kids, with the facts that are mentioned in the back of the book.

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that this book combines looking at our base ten counting system with recycling. I understand it is the function of the book, but it is a little impractical and wasteful for the kids to put only ten cans into a bag and then bag them up again in groups of ten. But if they didn't, I guess we'd miss half the point of the book.

[Seher Patka · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book talks about recycling and keeping Earth a clean place. You can have students talk about ways they keep the Earth a clean place.At the same time, it includes a lesson on counting and sorting cans for recycling by 1's, 10's, and 100's. You can have the students count the cans with you as you read the book. Excellent science and math integrated lesson.

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book can be used to teach the students about place value. As you read the story, the students can follow along and count the 10s, 100s, 1000s, and ones. This book can teach students the importance of Earth Day and recycling.

[Katie Plumley · Rating 4 out of 5]

~Great intro into recycling unit.
~Community building: the kids institute a recycling program at their school in order to clean up the park.
~Healthy living: Get plenty of time out doors playing!
~Can be used as a springboard to beginning a recycling program at the school.

[Library Lady Terri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this book in my $mart Money for Kids program on April 9th. The kids learned about using incentives to change people's behavior.

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[Wrigley · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's all about collecting cans

[Bailey]

This is great book to read to your students on Earth Day. It is also a great book to use for math. It helps teach students place value.

[Amanda Stacy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to teach an integrated lesson plan with reading, math and science to 2nd-5th. This is a great book that teaches about recycling and uses math to count up the materials needed.

[Bethe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great message of how kids can make a difference and clean up their neighborhood, with an exercise in place value as well.

[Deb Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book about place value and saving the planet. I enjoyed the environmental facts written "outside" the story.

[Esther]

Place Value (and recycling): Recycled cans are bundled into bags of 10s, 100s, and 1000s.

[Beyond the Pages with Eva K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this book!

[Mollie B · Rating 5 out of 5]

math and recycling! Super win

[Maritza Mejia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book for math and science since they are discussing about recycling and the environment as well as counting by tens, ones, hundreds, and even thousands.