Complete Resource List

This beautiful book involves both counting one to ten as well as adding on by one. There are big, colorful pictures, with cut outs to the next page where each fish’s eyes are placed. Each picture also has the numeral and the word for each number as you count.  

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As a rabbit and his mother walk through the grocery store, putting food in their cart, they compare the amounts of carrots, worms, and peanuts that are in their cart to the amounts in other carts. The book introduces concepts like more, fewer, and same, and lays out the comparisons very clearly at the bottom of each page, showing the amount that the rabbit and mother have, the amount that another animal has that is fewer, the amount that another animal has that is the same, and the amount that another has that is more. This book could be used as a jumping off point for these concepts and could lead to comparing the number of objects around them. For example, children could compare the number of red leaves, yellow leaves, and brown leaves in an area of the backyard, or compare the number of dolls versus the number of stuffed animals in his or her room.  

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Three small children want to dress up as firefighters, but the buttons are missing from their jackets. The three of them need to find a way of sorting the loose buttons they have that will give them three full sets of buttons for their jackets. They sort the buttons by color, shape, and size over the duration of the book, with the buttons laid out in their groups and also seen on the jackets (so it is easily seen when a kid is missing a button from his or her set). Murphy uses rhyming to inject a bit more fun into the simple story.  

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Molly wants to play with her brother Kevin’s toy cars. Despite the fact that she’s not allowed to touch the cars, when he leaves the room she takes them down from the shelf where they have been neatly arranged and starts playing with them. Each time a parent comes in and catches her, she has to put them back on the shelf, but she can’t remember how Kevin had them arranged, so she orders them in different ways. This book deals with not only classification (color of car, type of car), but also color patterns in the arrangements.  

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In this non-fiction picture book, a young girl describes her and her grandmother’s interest in beads. Through the multitude of facts and vivid pictures, the reader learns the history of beads and how they are used in different cultures. This book is fantastic for sorting and classification, as part of the story discusses how the young girl and her grandmother sort and categorize the beads—by type, size, color, etc. Every page includes an assortment of beads that your child can sort. There is also a bit on patterns, when the stringing of beads is discussed; in addition, the book can be used for counting as well (i.e. the number of each type/ color/ size of bead).  

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Dave owns a rock shop, and every time kids Amy and Josh visit, Dave’s shop window has rocks sorted in a different way, whether by size, color, or something else. The book follows Amy and Josh’s own collection and exploration of rock characteristics as they sort their own rocks in different ways. Throughout, there are a number of interesting facts about rocks and minerals that make the story more engaging. To accompany the book, children can share any of their own collectables like stickers, toy cars, coins stamps, etc and demonstrate strategies for sorting. Or, perhaps have your child sort a deck of cards in different ways—by suit, number, color, or whatever else they might come up with.  While the classification skills in this book are meant for pre-K and kindergarteners, with the interesting and slightly advanced rock facts, this could be good for first and second graders as well.

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