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PARENTS: Earth Day is a great day to talk with your kids about how math is used real-life situations. Check out
our downloadable pdf Earth Day - Hooray! Activity Page for some ideas on how
to have fun doing green math together.
TEACHERS, LIBRARIANS & BOOKSELLERS:
Our downloadable Activities Pages can be reproduced as
hand-outs. Please pass along our newsletter to colleagues
and parents. Thanks!
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 A note from Stuart on thinking green
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I love the Green Season, which for me starts with St. Patrick's Day on March 17 (I am a Murphy, after all!), continues with the first day of Spring a few days later, continues some more with Earth Day on April 22, and finishes with a flowery flourish on Arbor Day, a holiday for planting trees. In most places it falls on the last Friday in April, but some states celebrate Arbor Day earlier or later, depending on the climate.
Did you know there are two different Earth Days? In 1970, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who was upset about an oil spill off the coast of California called for an Environmental "teach in" day on April 22. That happens to be Julius Sterling Morton's birthday: He invented Arbor Day in 1872. (If you live near Chicago, the Morton Arboretum is named for his son, who also ran the Morton Salt company).
 An estimated 20 million people demonstrated for environmental awareness on that first Earth Day. Now, over a half billion people in 175 countries get involved.
In 1971, the United Nations declared International Earth Day to coincide with the vernal equinox, which also marks the first day of Spring, when the number of hours of daylight roughly equals the number of hours of darkness (the sun spends equal time above and below the horizon). It is a very symmetrical day -- and there is another one just like at the beginning of Fall!
The idea behind Earth Day, of course, goes beyond a single day, and Green is much more than a season. Taking good care of our environment is something we all need to do a better job of every day.
Our featured book is -- ta da! -- Earth Day - Hooray! Although it's a Level 3 title, we decided to do something special, developing story-based activity ideas suitable for all three MathStart levels.
Also, for the Pre-K set, we have a special bonus: pdf activity sheets from a workshop I gave last January for Maurice Sykes' "Pre-K Institute" in Washington D.C. It was 75 teachers and me! All day! And it was great!
Finally, I am very happy to announce that Childcraft Education has published 20 MathStart books as Big Books. See the articles below for all the details.
In the meantime, keep thinking - and doing - green!
Best wishes,
p.s. And for those who can't get enough green holidays, June 5 is the United Nation's World Environment Day.
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Earth Day - Hooray!
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Trying to save the planet? A little math can come in handy! Whether gathering up cans for recycling, comparing how much energy different kinds of light bulbs use, or figuring out how many flowers to plant in the school garden, math is always environmentally correct.  In honor of Earth Day - Sunday, April 22 - we have decided to do something we have never done before. Although my book, Earth Day - Hooray!, is a Level 3 title, we have come up with related activities suitable for all three levels. Green math? Of course! (click on book cover or text link) GREEN MATH TV!
Teacher Gini Salava of Schuylkill Elementary School in Phoenixville, PA, has written a play around Earth Day - Hooray! The gym teacher is choreographing the production, the art teacher is making the props, and the music teacher is teaching the children the song "Happy Earth Day" by Tom Chapin. Starring all the 2nd Graders, the show will be performed for the other classes and their parents. It will also be videotaped and shown on their local cable network! What a great way to make everyone aware of Earth Day, and learn some math in the process!
Teachers! Parents! Librarians! Booksellers! Have a cool idea for a MathStart activity?
Please share!
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| Big Books - Hooray!
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 "Are there any MathStart Big Books?" Teachers ask me that all the time. And - finally - the answer is, "Yes, indeed! There certainly are!" Childcraft Education has just published the following 20 Level 1 and 2 titles as Big Books that are available either individually or in sets of 10: In alphabetical order: - Animals on Board (adding)
- Beep Beep, Vroom Vroom! (pattern recognition)
- The Best Bug Parade (comparing sizes)
- The Best Vacation Ever (collecting data)
- Bug Dance (directions)
- Circus Shapes (recognizing shapes)
- Double the Ducks (doubling numbers)
- Elevator Magic (subtracting)
- Every Buddy Counts (counting)
- A House for Birdie (understanding capacity)
- It's About Time (hours)
- Jack the Builder (counting on)
- Just Enough Carrots (comparing amounts)
- Let's Fly a Kite (symmetry)
- Mighty Maddie (comparing weights)
- Missing Mittens (odd and even numbers)
- A Pair of Socks (matching)
- Rabbit's Pajama Party (sequencing)
- Seaweed Soup (matching sets)
- 3 Little Firefighters (sorting)
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 Pre-K - Hooray!
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Last January, I was invited to give an all-day Pre-K teachers workshop in Washington D.C.. What fun! And what a lot of work! The workshop was part of a "Pre-K Academy" program developed by Maurice Sykes, Executive Director of the Early Childhood Leadership Institute at the University of the District of Columbia.
At Maurice' suggestion, I correlated all the Activity hand-outs to the D.C. Pre-K standards. Each state, of course, has its own standards, but most are similar to the D.C.'s, so I thought it would be useful to include the hand-outs in this newsletter as downloadable pdfs.
As an added bonus, we also put together a Pre-K Math Bibliography, also correlated to the standards It includes all 21 Level 1 MathStart titles, as well as 63 books by other authors. If children enjoy learning math through stories, give them more stories! Math and literature are a terrific combo.
Math + Words = Fun!
 Beep Beep, Vroom Vroom!(pattern recognition)
 Seaweed Soup
(matching sets)
 A House for Birdie(understanding capacity)
 Jack the Builder (counting on)
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Story Books
That Make Math Fun!
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MATHSTART!
63 Books! / 3 Levels!
Pre-K to Grade 4!
www.stuartjmurphy.com
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The word equinox comes from two Latin words:
aequus means "equal" and nox means "night"
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COOL WEBSITE!
Earth 911
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Type your zip code in the little box on the upper left-hand corner of Earth 911 and find localized information about where to recycle almost anything you can imagine!
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Over 50 billion aluminum cans are recycled in the U.S. each year, but that's only about 50% of the total.
We can do better!
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Last year, members of the National Arbor Day Foundation planted
8.5 million trees!
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How many trees does it take to make a ton of paper?
That depends on the type of paper. According to
conservatree.com
1 ton (that's 40 cartons) of 30% post-consumer content copier paper saves 7.2 trees. But 1 ton of 50% post-consumer content copier paper saves 12 trees. Copy that! (and graph it, too!)
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Justin: "Hey Mom, they sent
me Mr. Murphy!"
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Stu,
Just wanted to drop a line to say hello. Justin received his monthly book club package the other day and lo and behold there were 6 Stu Murphy originals! Justin opened the package and yelled "Hey Mom! They sent me Mr. Murphy!" We have been enjoying them at bed time and Justin's favorite is Jack the Builder. He was just tickled pink to know that he knew your Jack. Anyway, I took this picture of Justin and the books and thought I'd send it along.
- Jeff, Justin's Dad
Hi Jeff & Crystal! Hi Justin!
Wow! Thanks for the picture -- what a lot of books! And now everybody will know that there is a real Jack-the-Builder (my grandson) and that he has a great friend named Justin!
- Stu
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It is always a delight to hear from readers. Send email to feedback@stuartjmurphy.com
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On a warm summer day, a single mature tree can provide the cooling effect of five room-size air-conditioners
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SOME LIGHT BULB!
According to the EPA, if every American home replaced just one regular light bulb with a compact fluorescent (CFL) with an Energy Star rating, "we could save enough energy to light more than 2.5 miliion homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions of nearly 80,000 cars."
* CFL's, however, have tiny amounts of mercury, so find out how your city handles disposal. CFL's should never be thrown into the regular garbage.
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MathStart Illustrators
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