A Fair Bear Share By Nesia Huryn

Author: Stuart J Murphy

Illustrator:  John Speirs

Recommended Grades: 1-2

Common Core Mathematics Standard: New York State Learning Standards

Common Core standard for Mathematical Practice Grade 1

1.NBT.2

Number & Operations in Base Ten 

2. Understand place value of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones. Understand the following as special cases.

a. 10 can be thought of as a bundle of ten one-called a "ten."

b. The numbers from 11 to 19 are composed of a ten and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.

c. The numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 refer to one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.

Summary:The bear cubs gather berries seeds, and nuts for Mama's Bear's Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie. Each time the bear cubs fill up their baskets the cubs count berries, seeds and nuts into groups of tens and ones to see if they have enough for mama to bake her pies. One little sister did not want to do her fair share she skipped, jumped and ran around. In the end she worked hard, did her fair share and the cubs were able to have their pies.

Ratings: **** This book was fun to read. I liked the colorful pictures and the way group of the tens and ones numbers were shown in the book.

Classroom Ideas: This book could be used for both addition and subtraction. Students could be placed in groups of three and given 100 Popsicle sticks and rubber bands. The teacher could ask the students to group the number of sticks like what was shown in the book. The students would group the sticks in tens and ones. Questions could be asked how many groups of tens are in 49? The students could the bundle of sticks to give the answer, 4 tens and 9 ones.