Math is around us everywhere, from the addition used when counting toys to the geometry of spotting shapes in the clouds. When you’re making a plan for home learning routines, math picture books will help your child practice new math skills while improving their reading comprehension. The ability to understand what you read and pick up new words as you go is an important literacy skill.
These math picture books from Waterford.org are a great free resource for families with children in PreK, kindergarten, and early elementary school. Every book is available in English and Spanish, with Spanish translation by Daisy Bratcher. You can download and print these books whenever you like, too!
Plus, Waterford has tons of free reading and math games, songs, and activities for PreK and early elementary learners. To create your free account and get access to these great resources, follow the links below:
- PreK families: Waterford Upstart
- Elementary families: Waterford Mentor
The Best Early Math Counting, Addition, and Subtraction Books
1. A Space Adventure by Brent Morrison (Spanish: Una aventura espacial): Practice counting down from ten in this adventure about the amazing sights a girl sees in outer space.
2. The 50 Bug Ball by Patrick Campbell (Spanish: El baile de 50 insectos): Add groups of bugs by 5 as they get ready to celebrate at the bug ball!
3. Eighteen Carrot Stew by Chelsey and Laura H. Smith (Spanish: Caldo de dieciocho zanahorias): While cooking soup for dinner, a girl and her mother practice counting groups of tasty vegetables.
4. Circus 20 by Robyn Ward (Spanish: Circo 20): Run off with this elementary math picture book to learn subtraction skills in the circus!
5. Jump Rope Rhymes by James Wilding (Spanish: Rimas para brincar la cuerda) Get the rhythm as you practice counting by 1s, 2s, 5s, and 10s with this fun rhyming math book!
6. Hurray, Hurray for the One Hundredth Day! by Vickie Ahlstrom (Spanish: ¡Viva, viva el día cien!): The one hundredth day of school is here! Celebrate with this classroom while learning to count large groups of numbers.
The Best Fraction, Facts, and Shapes Books
7. Facts About Families by Elizabeth Lane (Spanish: Datos de las familias): Learn about fact families—or a group of addition or subtraction facts—with these friendly frogs.
8. Halves and Fourths and Thirds by Michael Johnson (Spanish: Mitades y cuartos y tercios): Join this tasty trio as an orange, a tomato, and a piece of cheese search for their missing pieces in this colorful book about fractions.
9. The Shape of Things by Dave Tovey (Spanish: Las Forma de las Casas): Have fun identifying shapes like circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, stars, ovals, and more in everyday life.
10. Imagination Shapes by James Wilding (Spanish: Formas imaginarias): Follow along with the characters in this book as they play with basic shapes to make different animals and objects.
The Best Puzzle and Story Picture Books
11. Bugs for Sale by Dusten MacDonald (Spanish: Insectos a la venta): Two girls become business savvy as they earn money and learn to add pennies, novels, dimes, and quarters. What’s the goal? To buy a bug collection!
12. Chloe’s Cracker Caper by Olivia Birdsall (Spanish: El misterio de las galletas de Chloe): When Chloe’s crackers go missing, she’s determined to find the culprit while practicing her addition skills along the way.
13. Half for You and Half for Me by Shelly Hurst Lonni (Spanish: La Mitad para Tí y la Mitad para Mí): To make sure everyone gets an equal amount of snacks, a little girl practices dividing food into fractions to share with friends.
14. I Want to Be a Mathematician Like Ada Byron Lovelace by Elizabeth Lane (Spanish: Quiero ser un matemático como Ada Byron Lovelace): Discover fun facts about Ada Byron Lovelace, a mathematician in the 1800s whose early work and big ideas led to the invention of the computer over a hundred years later!
15. Painting by Number by Olivia Birdsall (Spanish: Pintando por número): Young aspiring artist Tyrell uses pictures to make sure there are enough paints, brushes, and friends to create a beautiful mural in this math picture book.
For more free math resources, use these downloadable fact sheets to practice math skills with your PreK-2 learner, available in English and Spanish:
