One of my kids’ favorite books is “Bedtime Math.” This clever math book for kids by Laura Overdeck aims to make kids feel about math the way they feel about dessert after dinner. I have to say that she comes pretty close. This book is a creative take on the traditional bedtime story. And best of all, it will get your kids practicing their math facts without them knowing they are doing so. I also love it because it mixes up the bedtime story routine and makes it more interactive.
There are five chapters in Bedtime Math, with fun topics such as exploding food and really odd jobs. Within each section, you’ll read the set up story with your kids and then based on the age of your child select one of the three math problems (with varying levels of difficulty). If you have multiple age children in your group, like we do, you can read the story aloud and then ask each child a different math problem. The siblings love hearing the different questions. I also think there are some great benefits of Little and Middle listening to Big try to reason out an answer. Yes, that’s right, this book can actually be read with my 4, 7 & almost 13 year old! (But don’t let Big know I told you he enjoys it).
A sample story might be about playing with ketchup. In it, you’ll learn that everyone struggles with getting ketchup out of a glass bottle and that’s why they invented the plastic squeeze bottle. You’ll also learn that every cup of ketchup contains about 14 cooked-down tomatoes. (Who knew there were that many in 1 cup!!)
Then you select the appropriate math problem for each of your kids:
Wee ones: If you squirt two squirts of ketchup on a hot dog, and then one more squirt on your friend’s head, how many squirts did you fire off?
Little kids: If you line up some burgers and squirt ketchup on the first burger, then every third burger after that, which burger in the lineup is the fourth burger to get squirted?
Big kids: If you squirt two cups of ketchup, and each cup used 14 tomatoes, how many tomatoes worth of ketchup did you just squirt?
In addition to the two books in the series (“Bedtime Math 2” was just released), you can go online and subscribe to their email newsletter and every day they’ll email you a math problem for three different age groups: Pre K, Kindergarten and 2nd grade and up. (People, this is free!!! There really is no excuse not to do it). The problems are just as topical and fun as those in the book. Yesterday’s was on Star Wars.
Recently we’ve also read about and solved problems regarding ferris wheels, glow in the dark roads and the world’s biggest collection of rubber ducks. And best of all, the answers to the problems appear just below the questions, so you don’t have to be worried about whether you know the correct answer. I love having these problems handy when we’re sitting in the carpool line, at the doctor’s office or in a restaurant.
You really need to try it with your kids. It’s a great resource to help our kids connect math concepts to real life situations. Would love to hear what you think about it once you try it.
This article originally appeared on Chicago Parent where I am a contributing blogger.