I love infusing math time with math literature. And it’s all the better when the book is about doughnuts! Dozens of Doughnuts by my critique partner Carrie Finison and illustrated by Brianne Farley is a delightful, fun, and delicious book that kids will enjoy, served with a side of math.
LouAnn the bear cooks up a plate of doughnuts to eat right before hibernation but gets interrupted by forest friends who make themselves welcome and gobble up doughnuts. LouAnn finally gets fed up when she realizes there is nothing left to eat, and her stomach rumbles. Thankfully, her furry friends come to the solution that they can make more doughnuts.
This book is great for subtraction and division. As each animal eats a share of the plate of doughnuts, students can write an equation to see how many are left. The author’s website has a pdf of clip art doughnut counters. Students can write their own doughnut story problems using the counters. Or students can invent fun-flavored doughnuts and write story problems.
I used this book during the pandemic. I created an activity in the Seesaw app for students to make a story problem and draw their own doughnuts.
A teacher finds treasure when a picture book can be used for multiple subjects. Not only math, this book is also great to use for reading. Great page turns allow the kids to guess the rhyme on the next page. A story map of setting, characters, problem, solution, and events in the story work well.
Teachers can also hit on the topic of social emotional learning. In the end, the animals are sensitive to LouAnn’s feelings and apologize for eating all of her doughnuts. This models to children we should apologize when we do wrong to someone.
National Doughnut Day is the first Friday in June. But don’t worry, you don’t have to wait until June to use this book. National Cream-Filled Doughnut Day is September 14th. Ah, a great reason to check out this book. And if that date flies past you, the book opens with, “Early one morning, as autumn leaves scatter…” Point out the setting of autumn, which leads to seasonal doughnuts like pumpkin spice or apple cider doughnuts.
All in all, I hope you find multiple uses for Dozens of Doughnuts!
