Books That Measure Up

It's that time of year. The students have just returned from spring break and as I look over my syllabus, I grow weary, as I am STILL pushing my way through arithmetic. We have covered number sense, counting, place value, whole number operations and computation and estimation. Now we are well into fractions and decimals. I am so ready to move on. I think my students are too. Looking down the road, I am gleefully anticipating the arrival of measurement and the opportunity to do all kinds of wonderful activities.

As I begin to plan for this new topic, I find myself on the floor of my office, pulling books from the shelves, happily deciding which ones to use for lessons. Here are some of my favorite books on standard and nonstandard measurement.

• I am CRAZY about the work done by Steve Jenkins. His size books are marvels, as are his comparative books. I can't say enough good things about them, so do check out ALL of these fantastic titles.
• Actual Size - If the gorilla hand and pygmy mouse lemur on the cover don't grab you, check out the Goliath birdeater tarantula inside!
• Big and Little - This lovely book offers pairs of animals that are related but vastly different in size.
  
• Biggest, Strongest, Fastest - This book presents 14 record holders in the animal world along with some amazing facts about them.
  
• Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest - Read this book to learn about some amazing places on Earth and how they measure up.
• Prehistoric Actual Size - Following on the heels of Actual Size, this book features interesting aspects of prehistoric figures.
  

• Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni - In this Caldecott honor book, an inchworm measures a robin's tail, a flamingo's neck, a toucan's beak, a heron's legs, and a nightingale's song in order to keep from being eaten.

• How Big is a Foot? by Rolf Myller - When a king measures his wife for a bed (using his feet to pace off the distance), he is surprised when the bed that is made is much too small for the queen.
  

• Jim and the Beanstalk by Raymond Briggs - The giant Jim meets at the top of the beanstalk is in sorry shape, so Jim helps by measuring him for new teeth, hair and eyeglasses.

• Measuring Penny by Loreen Leedy - When a young girl is challenged by her teacher to measure things in a number of ways, she measures her dog and her dog's friends using both standard and non-standard (dog biscuits, cotton swabs, etc.) units.

• Twelve Snails to One Lizard: A Tale of Mischief and Measurement by Susan Hightower - When a beaver needs to cut a log to "fit just right" in his dam, Bubba Bullfrog suggests a variety of ways to measure the length.

• Esio Trot by Roald Dahl - A lovestruck Mr. Hoppy is determined to find a way to Mrs. Silver's heart. When he provides her with some strange language to make her tortoise grow bigger, amazing things begin to happen to Alfie's (the tortoise's) weight.
  

• Fannie in the Kitchen: The Whole Story from Soup to Nuts of How Fannie Farmer Invented Recipes with Precise Measurements by Deborah Hopkinson - Fannie Farmer is a mother’s helper in the Shaw house, where the daughter gives her the idea of writing down precise instructions for measuring and cooking. This eventually became one of the first modern cookbooks.

• Millions to Measure by David Schwartz - Marvelosissimo the Magician explains the development of standard units of measure, and shows the simplicity of calculating length, height, weight, and volume using the metric system.


• George Shrinks by William Joyce - George wakes one morning to find that he is three inches tall and that his parents have left him to mind the house and his younger brother. This is a terrific look at what life would be like if you were smaller in size than a toy soldier.

• Pair the above book with this wonderful poem by Shel Silverstein, found in Where the Sidewalk Ends.
  
  One Inch Tall
  If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.
  The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.
  A crumb of cake would be a feast
  And last you seven days at least,
  A flea would be a frightening beast
  If you were one inch tall.
  
  If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,
  And it would take about a month to get down to the store.
  A bit of fluff would be your bed,
  You'd swing upon a spider's thread,
  And wear a thimble on your head
  If you were one inch tall.
  
  You'd surf across the kitchen sink upon a stick of gum.
  You couldn't hug your mama, you'd just have to hug her thumb.
  You'd run from people's feet in fright,
  To move a pen would take all night,
  (This poem took fourteen years to write--
  'Cause I'm just one inch tall).
  

• To keep the theme of "little people" going, read one of my favorites from childhood, The Borrowers by Mary Norton. In this book, the Clock family lives under the floorboards of a country house in England where they "borrow" objects for their home, making use of such items as matchboxes for storage and postage stamps for paintings.
  

• Is It Larger? Is It Smaller? by Tana Hoban - No math collection is complete without the fabulous wordless books of Tana Hoban. Using stunning photographs, the book introduces young children to examples of big and small in the world around them.

• How Tall, How Short, How Far Away? by David Adler - This book introduces the history of measurement and looks at several measuring systems, including the ancient Egyptian system, the US customary system and the metric system.

• Robert Wells has written two wonderful books about size comparisons.
• Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is?
• What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew?

• The Librarian Who Measured the Earth by Kathryn Lasky - A great book for older students that looks at how Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the Earth.

• How Big is Big? by Stephen Strauss - This is a lovely book of poems that examines at the relativity of measurement terms, such as big and small, fast and slow, deep and high. Here is an excerpt from the book.

How big is big?
A super fat pig?
A giant tomato?
A skyscraper potato?
No, bigness is something no one can consume,
Like how many oceans
Fit into the moon.

There are many other books about measurement found within different math series, including Stuart Murphy's MathStart (I love these), Hello Math Reader, Math Matters, Math Counts by Henry Pluckrose, and many more. Even though our state curriculum includes time and money in the study of measurement, this list focuses largely on length, mass and volume. Please let me know if I've missed any stand-out titles.