One Is a Snail, Ten Is a Crab: A Counting by Feet Book

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The numbers are printed in a font size that is significantly larger than the text, cueing the reader to their importance. The use of multiple examples for the larger numbers also provides multiple avenues to understand how smaller groups are combined to form one larger group.

When you are counting by feet then 1 is a snail and 2 is a person and 4 is a dog! This book uses the number of feet on various animals to be the units by which numbers can be expressed. So for example: “40” can be 10 dogs (10 x 4) or 20 people (20 x 2) or 6 insects and a dog (6 x 6 + 4). The book is a humorous and colourful illustration of part-whole thinking. I tend to agree more with Kristin Harris because I really felt that this book was creative and imaginative especially for a math book. I can remember reading very boring counting books, but this one would have actually kept my attention. I also agree that the illustrations are humorous and colorful. Throughout the book I would catch myself stopping and really taking the pictures in. I think that children would love this book. This book was clearly made to teach children to count or add. I thought that the way the authors and illustrator presented the material was very unique and fun. have used 10 as a group previously, such as participating in tasks that use models such as tens frames.This task uses the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab to explore numbers up to 20. Students represent numbers using the number of legs on animals in the book and look at how one number can be represented in multiple ways. Students also explore the efficiency of different representations. Lesson 2: One Crab + Some More

Prior to this lesson you can have created copymasters of your own children’s drawings of the “units” (snail, person, dog, insect, crab) by asking someone to draw one of each and then reproducing them on a photocopier to create sheets of units or you can use the copymaster of clip art “units” or you can have each child do their own drawings for the activity. Brief Book Summary: This book is entirely about counting, and uses unique and creative ways of showing children how to do so. The book begins by showing the reader that a snail has one foot, so they begin there at one. Then it continues that two is a person because a person has two feet. Three is a person and a snail. Four is a dog because they have four legs. Five is a dog and a snail. Six is an insect. Seven is an insect and a snail. Eight is a spider. Nine is a spider and a snail. Ten is a crab. The book then continues to count by ten’s up to one hundred using various things to count with for instance, “twenty is two crabs”, and “thirty is three crabs or ten people and a crab.” The humorous nature of the story is presented in multiple settings with crabs in a pyramid, crabs in a conga line, and crabs headed to the shore with their inner tubes. While they only have two small eyes and a simple mouth this provides ample expression as one crab is left behind with ten spiders, looking rather uncomfortable. This ingenious counting book is all about feet. Not the kind with inches. The kind with toes, or paws, or claws. “1 is a snail. 2 is a person. 3 is a person and a snail.” The four-footed dog plus a snail equals five. The eight –footed spider plus a snail equals nine. Ten? Why, ten is a crab! And that means 20 is two crabs. Forty is four crabs, or ten dogs or…you get the picture. And so will kids. No doubt they’ll be eagerly creating their own pedimentary equations in no time.”After reading the book explain to students that they (or their pair) will each get to pull a number from the bag and make that number in 2 ways using the counting feet from the story. The element of humor makes the learning fun and introduces math in a context that is meant to be silly. With one hundred snails finishing the story the original character is brought full circle and the connection between one and one hundred firmly established. This task continues to use the book One is a Snail, Ten is a Crab. It introduces students to the patterns of our place-value system and the significance of 10. The key understanding of unitising is introduced by asking students to represent teen numbers using one crab, which is the same as using 1 ten. In doing so, students move from using 10 ones to 1 ten.