It's picture-taking at the Lumpkin family reunion and Uncle Howie wants all the cousins to line up by age—from one-year-old Jacob to 15 year-old Tanya. "Say Sassafras!" But when Uncle Howie clicks the shutter, something always seems to go wrong. "Great galloping gillywhoppers!"
Learning to arrange numbers in order helps develop counting skills and prepares children to understand our number system.
Illustrated by John Wallace.
There are several ways the children in the story could have been arranged by Uncle Howie: for example, by height, or alphabetically by name. Together with your child (or class), explore the various possibilities such as hair color.
Find the jersey numbers of favorite sports team members. These can be found on team’s website, Ask your child (or students) to put the players in order based on jersey numbers.
Card Game: Take a deck of cards and put aside the tens and face cards. Each player is dealt 2 cards, which will be used to create a two-digit number. For example, a player dealt an ace and a 9 can make the numbers “19” or “91”. Together the players place all their numbers in order. The person with the smallest number collects all the cards. After all the cards have been played, the player with the most cards wins.
Ask your child (or students) to draw pictures of family members. Then have them cut out the drawings and arrange people by age, from youngest to oldest. Now try from oldest to youngest.