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Best Picture Books for Building Preschool Math Skills
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items As a preschool teacher and now as a homeschool mom, I have developed such a passion for helping children build early math skills through literature and play. These are a few of my favorite high-quality picture books for introducing and building early...
A cute story for introducing ordinal numbers. Pair with rubber duck counters for hands-on learning.
10 Little Rubber Ducks
Learn about caterpillars and butterflies and practice counting from 1 to 10!
Ten Little Caterpillars
A delightful and beautifully illustrated story to introduce doubling! After reading this book, we explored doubling with snacks!
One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale
A wild tale about seven daring sisters and a dragon, wonderful for introducing ordinal numbers. Pair this story with small-world play - tell your own family story with figurines and practice identifying the siblings with ordinal numbers.
The Seven Chinese Sisters
This is my favorite story for introducing patterns. The story shows lots of different types of patterns - both visual patterns and patterns of movement - perfect for inspiring lots of different types of pattern play. Plus, there’s a silly shark surpr...
Pattern Fish
This was a favorite in my preschool classroom. It’s a fun and simple story to introduce counting and adding one. After reading the story, you can practice adding one with any counters you have on hand - pompoms are always fun!
Fish Eyes
Children love this wonderful story about sharing cookies. It’s a great introduction to simple division and easily translates to hands-on activities.
The Doorbell Rang
A suspenseful tale of addition and counting down featuring a hungry snake and ten clever mice. Have children retell the story with manipulatives to practice counting and adding.
Mouse Count
Mouse Shapes is a fun story about a pile of shapes, three clever and creative mice, and the cat they must outsmart. Pairs well with Tangrams or shape collage.
Mouse Shapes
My preschool has really enjoyed this fun story, and it’s been a great introduction to directional language and measurement concepts! It’s very fun to follow this book with a treasure hunt or let kids design their own maps of a favorite place.
Follow That Map!
A super cute story to introduce sorting! Perfect to pair with open-ended sorting activities.
Sort It Out!
Another super sweet story to introduce sorting! This one pairs perfectly with a box of buttons and an open invitation for children to experiment with sorting.
The Button Box
A fascinating and beautifully illustrated book to get kids interested in measuring! Get kids excited about measuring by inviting them to try measuring with tape measures, rulers, Unifix cubes, Duplos, string…the possibilities are endless! Young child...
Actual Size
This is another great book for introducing measurement concepts and comparative language.
Biggest, Strongest, Fastest
My boys love this book, and it’s a great introduction to counting up and down as well as numeral identification - find the hidden number in every picture! My kids are mastering counting by playing rocket ship and counting down to blast off!
On the Launch Pad
I love the high-interest photos in this book and the invitation to look for shapes in real life! After reading, go on a shape hunt walk around your neighborhood!
Shape Up, Construction Trucks!
This book is wonderful for encouraging creative play with shapes! After reading, provide children with squares of paper, scissors, hole punches, and glue…see where their imaginations lead!
Perfect Square
This book was a big hit with my boys, and I love it for teaching rhythm - making patterns with music! Pairs well with drums or rhythm sticks!
Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb
This is such a fun and silly story - a great introduction to talking about patterns!
A Bad Case of Stripes
Rosie’s Walk is the story of a sly Fox and a clever hen that’s guaranteed to make preschoolers giggle and will also introduce spatial vocabulary. My preschool class loved reenacting this story!
Rosie's Walk
A humorous classic perfect for introducing the idea of capacity.
Strega Nona
This is a fun celebration of building and creativity and the perfect introduction to counting on. Pairs perfectly with block play. It’s also part of a larger series by Stuart J. Murphy that’s great for building early math skills.
Jack the Builder