Each Orange Had 8 Slices

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Have you ever heard of the book Each Orange Had 8 Slices by Paul Giganti, Jr.? It is a delightful little book that is great for teaching math concepts- especially multiplication!

(Our book is well-loved and has a little water damage!)

In the book Each Orange Had 8 Slices, the story is told with repetition. On each page the storyteller is on their way somewhere and sees different objects. Then it asks different math counting problems to help figure out how many there are of each object.

For instance on page one it reads:

On my way to the playground I saw 3 red flowers.
Each red flower had 6 pretty petals.
Each petal had 2 tiny black bugs.

How may red flowers were there?
How many pretty petals were there?
How many tiny black bugs were there in all?

Here is another page for you to see:

What I love about this book is that it is fun to read, but also encourages thinking, problem solving and discussion with your kids!

We love to read this and then do it in real life. We went around the house and the yard and found objects with multiple parts that would work with this book. A few things we found were forks, flowers, cars or trucks, leaves, our feet, apples & their seeds, etc. You can really get creative with this and use any types of objects!

Talk to them about equivalents and how you can add them or multiply them.

I made this printable for you to use. You could print several of them out and make it into your own illustrated book with the kids. Have them choose objects, draw them, then solve the math problems underneath.