A Fair Bear Share

A Fair Bear Share

By Stuart J. Murphy

Illustrated by John Speirs

Recommended Grade Level 1^st - 2^nd

Common Core Mathematics Standards Addressed: Additions; Counting and Regrouping developing understanding of whole number relationships and place value, including grouping in tens and ones. Number and operations in base ten.

(1) Students extend their understanding of the base-ten system. This includes ideas of counting in fives, tens, and multiples of hundreds, tens, and ones, as well as number relationships involving these units, including comparing. Students understand multi-digit numbers (up to 1000) written

in base-ten notation, recognizing that the digits in each place represent amounts of thousands, hundreds, tens, or ones (e.g., 853 is 8 hundreds + 5 tens + 3 ones).

Summary: The bear cubs go furrowing in the woods for seeds, berries and nuts for their Mama Bear’s Blue Ribbon Blueberry Pie. It involves the cubs doing their fair share of gathering the ingredients to make the pie. Using the method addition and regrouping to count their findings by placing them into groups of tens and ones.

Rating: **** This book shows a family used math in their everyday lives. A Fair Bear Share gives an account of each cub doing their fair share to accomplish a goal at the end, to have Mama Bear’s special pie. It is colorful, detailed and shows the nuts, berries and seeds in its own groups of tens and ones.

Classroom Ideas: Teacher will read the story out loud to the students describing and modeling what is taking place on each page. Asking questions throughout the story, for example how many groups of ten can you count in the first basket of berries collected? Are there any ones left over? Encourage your students to find things in the classroom that they can find in groups of ten for example chalk, pencils and crayons? Are there any leftover? Things that we know that comes in groups of ten?