Customer Reviews

The Best Bug Parade (MathStart 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I like the MathStart Series *in general* but I wish there was more consistency from book to book. "Henry the Fourth" which explored ordinal numbers was great. The story had a cute plot and it kept my children's interest. "Missing Mittens" (which was all about even and odd numbers) had a clumsy rhyme and it wasn't nearly as good. This book about comparing-and-contrasting sizes is different still. It has too few words and virtually no plot. Take a look at the sentences from the first *3 pages*:

"I am big."
"I am bigger than you are."
"I am the biggest bug by far."

Not much plot development there, and while the pictures detail more activity, it is insufficient for young readers/viewers.

On the bright side the `summary' pages are good. They show the 3 bugs currently under discussion (small, smaller, smallest, for example) in juxtaposition which makes it easy to talk about the concepts.

So I would say that if you are willing to compose a story to go along with the pictures you can use this book to successfully teach your children about relative size. Without your input though they aren't going to get much out if it.


Material covered in "Best Bug Parade":

Big, bigger, biggest
Small, smaller, smallest
Long, longer, longest.
Short, shorter, shortest.
Good, Better, Best.

And as usual there are 2 pages of related activities suggested at the end of the book.

Pam T~

This is a great book to teach size relationships as well as some basic reading words. The illustrations are great. However, I think the recommended age range (4-6)is a little off. My two year old loves the book, a friends 4 year old thinks its boring and too short.

This book is not the best book for storytime or a bedtime story. It is very short and has little action. However, it is great for teaching beginning math vocabulary dealing with size.

This book is a great educational, but fun book for children ages 3-6 years old. This book was written by Stuart J. Murphy, and illustrated by Holly Keller. Stuart Murphy has written many books. He has a series called Math Start, for children; there are 60 books in the series with over 60 million copies sold. This book is his first published (1996). It is a great book for children, to help them start on a path to learning size relationships. It has picture of different bugs and animal and asks "Which is smallest? Which is the biggest? Although it is without a plot, the book has great pictures, and would be excellent for a short bed time story. The kindergarten group that I read this book to really enjoyed it, I had to read it more than once to them!

My 3 yo already loves this book. It shows him exactly what I was hoping it would: differences in size. It starts out with Small, going through to smallest, then big, then long, and finally short. It's great. I recommend it for any younger child learning these concepts.

I am planning on getting the rest of the Math Start books, now.

this book was in goos shape. I was happy to have save the money I did.