A Book to Teach Math, Reading, and Social Skills All at Once

This summer I have one of my adorable kids from my old school that I just couldn't give up! I've been tutoring him twice a week for an hour at a time, and our main focus is math. As in ALL things math! He's a kid that can easily forget things he's learned, so it's been an intensive spiral review along with new concepts slowly sneaking in.

It's summer and it's just the two of us in an amazing library! It's beautiful, has tons of rooms where we can find a table where it's quiet, but not too quiet so people aren't mad when I'm talking to him a bunch. We've come to love the teen section since the teenagers are just there gossiping together anyway and couldn't care less about studying in summer.

My favorite part is that I can bribe reward him all I want! Every time I bring his favorite fruit snacks and smelly stickers for completing his tasks. Plus he "earns" book time if he uses his time wisely and I go read him any story he wants in the children's section...Little does he know this is my time to work on comprehension and social stuff with him!

Today he randomly picked this book and it was AMAZING!!

It's a math story about counting money, which was PERFECT timing because money was part of our work today. The book teaches how to use different coins to count the total amount it all. It reinforces the concept of "counting on" to make change and the phrase "exact change."

There are sooo many things you can do with inference skills as well. There are things that happen in the illustrations, but are not in the words. My favorite was a little girl who was muddy but it didn't say how exactly. I asked my kiddo how it happen if she is sitting on the grass. He said "maybe it was poop" completely seriously! I worked with his inferences in baby steps explaining how they are washing cars with water near the grass. Then talked about how wet grass gets muddy and he concluded she slipped in the mud. It was a very funny process!

We worked on the social skills based on the behaviors of the kids in the story. We talked about how a little girl squirted her friend with the hose, but he wasn't mad. Then how he "accidentally" squeezed a sponge on her head. We talked about how it was really on purpose, but she didn't mind since they were playing.

This lesson was completely random and I made it up as I went, but it was filled with sooo many concepts! I just may need to buy a copy to keep for my class! Now I'm curious about the rest of the series!

Do you have any favorite books that cover several concepts at once?