After my post of my own new years resolution reading, I thought it might be interesting to follow up with a couple of new books I got my son for Christmas.  He’s 3 and has officially moved from merely being able to recite numbers to actually being able to count objects.  While obviously he’s a bit young for statistics, I want to get him introduced to the world of math and some of the people who inhabit it early. Relatedly, here’s a nifty math skills/developmental chart I found for early childhood.

These are some of the books I’m using:

Bedtime Math: This Time It’s Personal (Bedtime Math Series Book 2)
This one we started using immediately, and it’s quite fun. Basically this is a four book series, created by a mom who realized that while kids get introduced to reading in a fun environment (home, in a parents lap before bed) they get introduced to math in a much less fun setting (later in a classroom). She decided to fix that by putting out books of funny math problems kids could do at home before bed. It has problems for several age groups, starting at around 3. Very fun, and a nice balance for traditional bed time routines.

Curious George Learns to Count from 1 to 100
This one is a big favorite, though we don’t make it quite to 100 yet. Curious George is my son’s hero right now, so I figured I’d use it to encourage him to go further in his counting.

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos
I’ve mentioned my own obsession with Paul Erdos, and I’m trying to pass it on. Erdos apparently would call children “epsilons”, but Finn doesn’t seem to be taking to that name. This one’s a little long for a 3 year old, but it’s interesting and the illustrations are amazing.

Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci
This one was recommended to me by my favorite children’s librarian (hi Tracy!). It’s about Fibonacci and is another one that’s slightly too long for a 3 year old, but interesting and historically enlightening. Mathematicians tend to be really fascinating people.

Introductory Calculus For Infants
Because it’s never too early to start.

Experimenting with Babies: 50 Amazing Science Projects You Can Perform on Your Kid
This one’s for mama.