One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab: A Counting by Feet Book

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This sequence begins with a focus on developing students’ counting skills to work with numbers beyond 10, then continues on to build early place value understanding as students investigate teen numbers. The key understanding of unitising is introduced as students use a group of 10 and some more ones to represent numbers 11 to 19. After reading the book explain to students that they (or their pair) will each get to pull a number from the bag and make that number in 2 ways using the counting feet from the story. The numbers are printed in a font size that is significantly larger than the text, cueing the reader to their importance. The use of multiple examples for the larger numbers also provides multiple avenues to understand how smaller groups are combined to form one larger group.

This task uses the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab to explore numbers up to 20. Students represent numbers using the number of legs on animals in the book and look at how one number can be represented in multiple ways. Students also explore the efficiency of different representations. Lesson 2: One Crab + Some MoreThe mathematical focus of the story and the use of everyday items that students recognize can be recreated in the classroom using a variety of tools. Any manipulative from food to marbles can be combined from smaller sets to larger sets, modeling the process within the book. The concept of using small skills to create a foundation for larger skills is done effectively in this book, using familiar animals and human attributes to allow the reader to see the math and math tools in any setting. Brief Book Summary: This book is entirely about counting, and uses unique and creative ways of showing children how to do so. The book begins by showing the reader that a snail has one foot, so they begin there at one. Then it continues that two is a person because a person has two feet. Three is a person and a snail. Four is a dog because they have four legs. Five is a dog and a snail. Six is an insect. Seven is an insect and a snail. Eight is a spider. Nine is a spider and a snail. Ten is a crab. The book then continues to count by ten’s up to one hundred using various things to count with for instance, “twenty is two crabs”, and “thirty is three crabs or ten people and a crab.” I tend to agree more with Kristin Harris because I really felt that this book was creative and imaginative especially for a math book. I can remember reading very boring counting books, but this one would have actually kept my attention. I also agree that the illustrations are humorous and colorful. Throughout the book I would catch myself stopping and really taking the pictures in. I think that children would love this book.

Using animals and people as the elements to count from one to one hundred, this book uses small numbers to first introduce the concept and then through repetition and building on that concept teaches how to reach much larger numbers. In relying upon the foundation of one through ten, with each number being represented by a cute creature, the reader is taught how to build math skills in a fun, inviting format.This task continues to use the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab. It introduces students to the patterns of our place-value system and the significance of 10. The key understanding of unitising is introduced by asking students to represent teen numbers using one crab, which is the same as using 1 ten. In doing so, students move from using 10 ones to 1 ten. Prior to reading, warm up with some number recognition and partitioning questions. “Play Guess my Number” with the hundreds board by choosing a “mystery number” in your mind and having students ask questions to narrow the search for the mystery number (Does it have a 2 in the ones column? etc.). Reverse the game and give clues that help them narrow the search for another number (for example: My number has an even number in the tens column, or My number is 4 more than tidy number, or My number is made up of a two digits that are the same, etc.)