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Read your way to a love of math: 75+ titles for ages 4-12 (UPDATED!)

ByJamie C. Martin

Read your way to a love of math books ~ Originally posted March 2015

Read your way to a love of math (UPDATED!) ~
Written by Jamie C. Martin of Simple Homeschool

I’m currently updating a series I published over ten(!) years ago about math, explaining how our family decided to approach the subject in a non-traditional way, particularly in the early years.

Now you’ll get to hear my perspective looking back as a veteran homeschool mom to see if it matches what my young, naive homeschool self thought! 😉

In these posts, we’ve explored math study from a different perspective, asking two important questions: Why do we do what we do when it comes to this subject? Are there any other valid approaches to consider?

Other updates in this math series:
* A different way to look at math
* Out of the box math inspirationA different way to look at math

An alternative to workbook pages in the early years is the simple sharing of a book spread open across your lap. It’s one of the easiest ways to create a blossoming love of numbers and patterns in a child’s heart and mind.

Back in the day when I was an insecure homeschool mom, I would have loved a list of well-chosen math titles, recommended by someone I trusted.

I’ve tried to provide that for you here, highlighting the resources we found most enjoyable in our own family – as well as including an updated list of other popular books you may want to check out.

Enjoy the journey as you read your way to a love of math!

Read your way to a love of math: 75+ titles for ages 4-12

Bedtime Math

Who is it for? Ages 4-12

read your way to a love of math

What a fun addition (get it?!) this resource is for your math-learning littles.

Check out their website or app for easy access to a daily math question, or check out one of their three published Bedtime Math books(afflinks) for an offline option.

The beauty of bedtime math is that there are questions geared to a variety of learning-levels, making it something you can use for your preschoolers all the way to your pre-teens!

Life of Fred

Who is it for? Ages 6 – High School

Since I first wrote this series, I’ve been asked the same question several times: “I’d like to approach math differently, but what can I do if I have to provide documentation for my state and/or my kids have to take a standardized test?”

My top recommendation for those in the above situation would be to explore Life of Fred Math, a curriculum that goes from early elementary all the way through high school – but in a very different way to the norm!

Used in a structured or formal way, you’d be able to approach math creatively but still be able to provide the documentation you need to meet your local requirements.

read your way to a love of math

Like any resource, Life of Fred isn’t for everyone. But my kids loved it, and I loved that I could read math aloud at the lunch table!

Mathemagic

Who is it for? Ages 4-12

Screen Shot 2015-03-13 at 11.16.21 AM

Mathemagic is Volume 13 of a kids’ encyclopedia series that used to be produced by Childcraft and is now out of print.

It is full of inspiring math stories, clever puzzles, riddles, and games – perfect for reading aloud or putting on the shelf for your kiddos to flip through.

Math study aside, we have always had a used set of several Childcraft volumes  on our shelves, and still do!

I can’t get of rid them, because hardly a homeschool day went by in our house that I didn’t see a child with one of these tucked under their arm. Keeping them for the grandchildren, perhaps one day?!

No longer in print, check for them on Amazon or Ebay.

Mathematicians Are People, Too

Who is it for? Ages 8-12

read your way to a love of math

This is a fascinating collection of short stories about the lives of the great mathematicians throughout history – often including the details about how they developed their groundbreaking theories and discoveries.

A perfect way to show our kids what passion for math looks like, this series contains two volumes.

Sir Cumference Series

Who is it for? Ages 7-11 (give or take)

read your way to a love of math

The Sir Cumference books introduce foundational geometry concepts through adventurous stories – radius and diameter, data collection, perimeter, area, and pi all make an appearance in this series of 12 titles.

*****

Other titles to explore for ages 4-8 (Updated!)

Other titles to explore for ages 8-12 (Updated!)

“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty.”
~ Bertrand Russell

read your way to a love of math

Do you know of any more inspiring titles to help read your way to a love of math?

What’s Your Homeschool Mom Personality? Take Jamie’s quiz now and receive a free personality report to help you organize your homeschool based on what your personality type needs most!

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42 Comments

  1. Thank you for this list! My oldest is in Kindergarten this year and I’d like to hold off on formal math studies for a couple of years, but at the same time introduce basic math in some way. Right now our main method of teaching math happens through conversations that come up, and I wasn’t sure what my next step would be. Reading some of these books sounds like a great idea!

  3. Oops. Messed up my links! Need more coffee! Sorry about that.

  4. This is a great list! And it covers all six of my kids which is hard to do! Thank you for taking the time to compile this list and share it. Have you seen Family Math? It would be a good complement to this list. It’s funny too. I just posted on my blog about how to create a well-rounded book list for any topic! We must be on the same wavelength:) Thanks again! Do you have a printable for of this list? I’d love to print it off and take it with me to the library.

  5. Thank you, thank you for all these great titles!!! Will work some of them into our homeschool plans for next year!

  6. I have a ten year old whom I have stressed out about math. We also have to report for our state. I know we need a break, but I can’t seem to see how to get there. Thank you for these suggestions. I will see if my library has any of these titles. Could you tell me what your “math time” during the day usually looks like? (If this is a future post-I will happily wait!)

    1. Right now my two children who are in Love of Learning Phase (my 11 & 10-year-olds) do a bit of math using Life of Fred a few times a week (takes 10-15 minutes). My 10-year-old son is memorizing his multiplication tables and we work on that just a few minutes each day. Then I also read a chapter aloud from Life of Fred at lunch time to everyone and we answer the questions aloud together (again, this takes 10-15 minutes).

      I’d recommend investing in Life of Fred if you must report for your state and if you have a child who is burnt out on math, but first I’d recommend a detox period where you downscale and take a break for a few months – just playing games and exploring natural math as it comes up in life, and reading books like these from the library! That, combined with what you’ve already done, would still give you plenty to report on!

  8. What a great list! I would also highly recommend “Math for Smarty Pants” by Marilyn Burns, a really fun book from the Brown Paper School Book series. It’s basically applied math with witty math problems that give clear context to conceptual math. My 9YO loves it, and does what she can from it as she learns various concepts, but it’s definitely worth getting for older kids as well. I can’t believe that I picked it up at Goodwill for a dollar…. it’s a fabulous book! In fact, we loved it so much that I searched out a bunch of other Brown Paper School books on history, problem solving, geneaology, anatomy, and other topics. We’re switching out of public school after this year, and I plan to transition over the summer using these fun books as we make our way into a mix of home & private school.

    1. Sounds like a great book/series, Melissa! Will check into that one as well – thanks for mentioning it.

  9. Thanks for the list! We also love The Cat in Numberland by Ekeland, though it may be out of print (we just borrow it more than our fair share from the library). It’s fun even when the concepts are over the kids’ heads. It’s about infinity, among other things.

    1. My Daughter also loved The Cat in Numberland! We have a copy and she was really into it a few years ago and read it more times than I can count (math story about infinity – pun intended!). Same time period another favorite of hers (non-math related) was The Greedy Apostrophe – like you we did not own it and I think we were the only ones to ever check it out of the library so eventually bought the book to have at our own home and let others have a shot at finding the book in the library.

  10. We’ve been fighting about math since Kid 1 started her first math book at age 5. She’s almost 9 now. Your first couple of posts for this series FINALLY articulated what I’ve been trying to figure out all this time and FINALLY gave me a clear way to communicate this to my husband, who gets really frustrated when our kids are “behind” because he’s very reluctant about homeschooling in the first place. So bless you bless you bless you for that. The current plan is to bail on the drill-and-kill online program and NOT order new math books, but spend the rest of this calendar year reading books like these that you list, playing number games, and messing around with shapes, patterns and other living math like getting better at telling time. And I’m looking at Life of Fred because my kids really like to read. Thank you again!

    1. Treen, this comment is the absolute highlight of my day. It makes all the hours put into these posts feel worth it – thank you and blessings on you and your daughter as you fall in love with math together!!

  12. Thank you so much for these! I knew some of them but many were new to me. Checking most of them out from my library.

  13. I’ve seen quite a few of these (from the younger category) and our library has most of them – hooray! My kids really enjoy math in a read-aloud format, so they will be happy with all these new fun books!

  14. this series of posts has been so helpful and encouraging to me. i have a 12 yr old who hates math, and a 9 who secretly loves it, and i wonder how much is the fact that i pushed it with the older (because we “should” be Doing Math!) and haven’t with the younger? makes me sad…but, .going forward! We have also enjoyed an old Time Life series from our library called I Love Math – themed puzzle books introducing different concepts – and are starting to explore The Adventures of Penrose the Math Cat by Theoni Pappas. We loved The Number Devil…

  15. I’ve been really saving this list–going through it slowly by myself and putting some titles on hold at the library. Quite a number of them I’ve read to my kids before and we’re big Fred fans, but so many I hadn’t heard of before….love this math series!
    Sarah M

    1. Oh! Some great ones I thought of that aren’t on this list are “Bart’s Amazing Charts” and “Eating Fractions” and the series titled “Family Math”.
      Sarah M

  16. Does anyone have a more “hands on approach” for Math? I have 3 girls that need more hands on and reading is great for me. But my girls need more hands on. We’ve been doing Saxon Math and it is driving us all bats. Any suggestions would be helpful.

    1. Hi Cassie. I plan to write another post talking about math games, supplies, videos, etc – I think that might be a good fit for you? Off the top of my head I’d recommend the book Games for Math by Peggy Kaye. It’s a book that describes hands-on math games to create and play.

  17. Thank you so much for this list, Jaime!
    I appreciate the time it took to put it together! 🙂

  18. These are great resources, Jamie!

    Question to Jamie and the crowd: I’d like to know about Spectrum.
    Are you all familiar with Spectrum Math, reading & language arts?
    I’ve read almost all positive reviews on Amazon, but I still don’t know if the books are a complete curriculum for every subject or just supplements.
    Any help would be appreciated (I’m just starting out).
    Sincerely,
    Jessica

  19. Such amazing titles in here, Jamie. I’m someone who always performed well in math but never loved it. I find now, as a homeschooler, that I treasure the math books. Must be the book worm in me 🙂

  20. We love the book Hannah, Divided

  21. Thank you SO MUCH for this list. I am looking for ways to help me 3 year old become aware of numbers/amounts/counting, etc. He loves going to the library and getting books, so I know this will be SO HELPFUL as we begin our homeschooling journey. I’m a newbie, but starting this fall and doing as much research as I can right now! Thank you!

  22. Jamie I’m loving this series. My son loves to read, but fights me about doing math so these are great suggestions! Someone already suggested family math. Not really a read aloud but that is a great series of hands on math games and activities. We also have a book called Go Figure that we found in the library but enjoyed so much we got our own copy. Recently we discovered the British collection of books called “murderous maths” by Karan Poskitt. It claims to be “maths with all the laughs added in.” There are 4 for younger kids and then a whole set for older kids. You can buy them on amazon but they ship from the uk so it’s a little slow or some for kindle. I also just got the first beast math by AoPS. My son wants nothing to do with the workbook but the “textbook” is a comic strip about monsters learning math. He loved it.

  24. Thank you for this! As a booklover, booklist addict and former math hater who is learning to delight in math and trying to encourage my 8yo son, we’re going to try to read as many of these as possible. 🙂

  25. We have the entire LOF series, and we love it. We’ve also enjoyed Bedtime Math. I love that it has questions for different levels of math skills. I will definitely have to check out some more of these, especially Mathematicians Are People, Too. Thanks for sharing!

  26. Aundrea Cherry says:

    We love “That’s Not My Math Book” that Usborne Books & More sells. Such a fun way to put all your math in to practice. 🙂

  27. I’m digging this list! My wife homeschools our three boys. For our oldest she uses Math U See / Epsilon and he seems to really be enjoying that. However, he loves reading and fantasy so the Sir Cumference I think would be a great fit.

    I had never heard of that one so I will pass that along to her! Hopefully we just found a new series that he and his brothers will love 🙂

  29. Supub and great helpful book for 5-15 years children. Thanks for your hard work for this.

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