I am always on the lookout for living math books, and when I stumbled upon Arithmetic Village, I knew I had to read this new series of books with my children. The five books arrived, and after one reading we were hooked. Ever since then my children, ages 5, 7, and 9, have chosen to read these delightful stories again and again. (Yes, even the nine-year old boy enjoys them!)
The Arithmetic Village series, written by Kimberly Moore, is set in a lovely, magical village nestled in a fairytale countryside where glittering jewels fall from the sky. The reader is gently introduced to place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as the children in the village collect, lose, and share the jewels with others.
The series includes:
Arithmetic Village – This first book of the series introduces the five main characters: Polly Plus, Linus Minus, Tina Times, and King David Divide. The concept of place value is introduced through the use of jewels, velvet sacks (ten jewels go in a sack), and treasure chests (ten sacks go in a chest). You can read the story in its entirety here.
Polly Plus – This story demonstrates the concept of addition as Polly goes about the village collecting jewels and adding them in her neat and precise manner.
Linus Minus – Described as “an adorable mess”, Linus shows us how to subtract by losing and scattering jewels everywhere he goes.
Tina Times – Speedy Tina demonstrates multiplication by quickly and efficiently counting groups of jewels as she gathers them.
King David Divide – The wise and fair king of Arithmetic Village, David Divide shares jewels with everyone. He distributes them equally, but if some are left over they go to his pet dog, Rover. (I love the idea of Rover receiving the remainder.)
My favorite things about this series:
- Rhyming text
- Engaging and whimsical story line
- The characters’ demonstrations of sharing, kindness, and other noble qualities
- The use of fun props – jewels, sacks, and treasure chests – that bring the math concepts to life
- The Arithmetic Village website. The author offers free hands-on activity ideas and downloads to accompany the books. She has posted several videos showing how to easily make (or buy) your own set of jewels, sacks, and treasure chest and how to use them with your children to reinforce through play the concepts taught in the stories. This website is a valuable resource and is not to be missed.
To purchase any or all of the books in the series, visit Arithmetic Village’s shop page where you can receive an online discount.
I am excited to announce that Kimberly is graciously giving away a set of Arithmetic Village books to one Curriculum Choice reader.
Two Ways to enter the giveaway – you can do both:
- Browse the activities at the Arithmetic Village website. Leave a comment here at CC telling us your favorite activity!
- Follow Arithmetic Village on Twitter, and leave a comment here at CC to let us know that you did.
Please make sure to leave a separate comment for each of your entries, as well as an email address or blog url where you can be contacted should you win. Entrants must live in the continental U.S.
**Deadline for entries is Monday, June 14th, 10:00 pm (EST).
Good luck, and enjoy your time in the Village!
(Disclosure: The Arithmetic Village series was provided to me for free for review purposes. The views and opinions expressed in this review are purely my own.)
Written by Shannon, who blogs about living books and other homeschool-ish things at Song of My Heart.
Love the mulitpication activities! Great ideas for all the books. Thanks for the giveaway, these look fabulous!
Sabrina
My kiddos would love the subtraction activities!
I love her number value idea. I could see my kids really loving playing with those, not really realizing the valuable math foundation they are gaining.
I follow Arithmetic Village on Twitter @onetallmama. Thanks for the giveaway!
Love love the graphics and cute addition sheets! My DD would LOVE this!! Thanks for the giveaway!!
I love the use of the treasure chest and the bags of jewels. I have a “princess” and a “pirate” that would love to dig into the treasure chest so I can sneak in a math lesson! 🙂
I’m following on Twitter!
I love reading books aloud that have a rhyming text and my kids love listening to them 🙂
I am following you on Twitter. 🙂
My children love medieval stories of knights and kings and castles, so this series fits into their interests. They also like treasure, so using jewels as manipulatives to practice multiplication tables is a wonderful idea. I like the whole idea of using make-believe and stories to learn math skills.
I like the “fairy tale” aspect of it that makes it fun for kids. I like the King David Divide activity.
I was just praying about something that could help my 3 girls learn their math concepts in an easy and fun way! What could be more fun for the girls than a magical land w/Kings, Princes and Princesses!! I am too excited!!!
These books look amazing! I looked through the activities and love the Tina Times ones. Adorable and learning all in one!
I follow on Twitter (tracyrunning)
Linus Minus makes me smile! My 7 y/o princess struggles mightily with her math facts and she would *love* this!
These look great! Especially for my son who loves anything that’s made into a story! I love the Tina Times playsheet!
Following Arithmetic Village on Twitter!
Looking at the activities I loved Tina Times- level my boy is at atm. Thanks!
I love the idea for teaching place value. It’s such an essential concept and so abstract! This really helps visualize it.
I’m now following Arithmetic Village on Twitter.
I liked the NUMBER VALUE IN ARITHMETIC VILLAGE activity idea. We need an activity like that around our home right now!
The Number value in Arithmetic Village Activity is a wonderful way to incorporate play and learning. I love the chest idea. Regardless if my little ones are medieval knights and princesses or pirates of Neverland, the chest full of jewels can work to teach the foundation of math concepts. I am excited to get a copy of these books for my little ones. Thank you for introducing them to me.
The mult and division look like they would be interesting!! Thanks for the giveaway.
Hi, I purchased these books after reading about them here but when I try to go to the site to get the activity downloads, etc it seems that the site is no longer functioning. I have written the author to no avail. Do you have idea of how I might obtain these materials? Thanks so much, Pamela