Sluggers' Car Wash: A MathStart Story About Learning Money and Math Skills for Kids

MathStart: Level 3 #12

by Stuart J. Murphy, Barney Saltzberg (Illustrator)

“Kids, young and old, fall in love with math when they see how real-life and effortless it becomes thanks to these books.” —Kimberly D. Mueller, Ed.D., First Grade Teacher, Ashbrook School, Lumberton NJ Sluggers' Car Wash is perfect for teaching dollars and cents to second, third, and fourth graders. The 21st Street Sluggers' T-shirts are worn-out and dirty. They need new ones, but they have no money. How can they raise some cash, and fast? By having a car wash!  Kids will love the story and the funny illustrations by Barney Saltzberg. Parents and other educators will love how the story and pictures make understanding comparisons a breeze—as well as the concrete examples of how math works! The book contains activities for adults to do with kids to extend math into their own lives! Math skills are life skills, and the MathStart series supports success! MathStart's unique combination of stories, illustrations, and visual models helps teachers and parents in the teaching of math and provides all children with the opportunity to succeed. The math concepts taught in MathStart books conform to state and national standards. Level 1 is Pre-K–Kindergarten; Level 2 is Grades 1–3; Level 3 is Grades 2–4. The series follows math topics across grades so there is a foundational path to learning that runs through the levels. Help kids with their math skills  plus  their reading skills with the engaging and fun MathStart series!

Genres: Mathematics, Picture Books, 1st Grade, Childrens, Money, Education

40 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

PICTURES & WORDS, STORIES & BOOKS
MathStart http://www.mathstart.net
I See I Learn http://www.iseeilearn.com

I was one of those kids who talked all the time in class. I loved telling stories. One day in the 4th Grade, my teacher said, “You tell such good stories, maybe you should try writing some of them down.” “Wow,” I thought. “She thinks my stories are good.” That’s when I started to really enjoy writing.

I was also the class artist. When I wasn’t talking,I was drawing. When I was older, I studied art at the Rhode Island School
of Design. That’s where I became interested in visual learning—how we decode and acquire information from graphs, charts, diagrams, models, illustrations and other images.

I became especially interested in educational publishing and have worked on the development of over a dozen major textbook programs, championing visual learning strategies from Pre-K through high school in every major curriculum area.

MATHSTART

The inspiration to write math stories for children was sparked by my work on a high school mathematics program. Visual learning strategies helped teens—who had been characterized as “reluctant learners’—understand difficult math concepts. Putting math in the context of stories based on their experiences made them feel more comfortable with abstract concepts. They actually became eager to apply math to real-life problems.
If this approach worked for older students, I began to wonder what might happen if younger children were introduced to math this way!

Even before children can read—or speak many words—they can interpret visual information with ease. The MathStart books use simple stories coupled with diagrams, graphs and other visual models to teach everything from probability and pattern recognition to area, capacity and negative numbers.

The Best Bug Parade, (comparing sizes) was my very first published book. It was absolutely thrilling to see my name in print! I never expected that one day there would 63 MathStart books, split over three levels for ages Pre-K to Grade 4.

Each book includes two pages of review and activities designed to help teachers and parents extend learning beyond the story, along with suggestions of related books by other authors. After all, if a child enjoys learning math through stories, then let’s have more stories!
(Pictures, Words & Math: An interview with Stuart J. Murphy )

THE MAIN STREET KIDS' CLUB: A MATHSTART MUSICAL

Now get out your dancing shoes—there is a musical based on six of the MathStart books! The Main Street Kids’ Club was workshopped at Northwestern University and adapted by Scott Ferguson, who also created the perennially popular production of Schoolhouse Rock Live!
The songs are terrific. The math is spot on. And the club motto makes my heart sing: “Math Skills are Life Skills!”

STUART J. MURPHY'S I SEE I LEARN

My latest series of books is focused on young children—Preschool and Kindergarten age.
I See I Learn books teach social, emotional, health and safety, and cognitive skills, such as how to make friends, build confidence, play safely, work together, manage emotions, and make plans. These skills are important for school readiness and for living happy, healthy, productive lives.

The stories “star” a wonderful bunch of friends who live in See-and-Learn City and attend Ready Set Pre-K. The cast includes Freda, Percy, Emma, Ajay, Camille, and Carlos. And, of course, Pickle, the green bull dog—who happens to have a soft-spot for butterflies—and Miss Cathy, their teacher.

I See I Learn stories are modeled on real-life situations and, just as in real-life, often involve more than one skill. For example, Freda Plans a Picnic is about sequencing, a cognitive skill, but the picnic itself is a social event. Percy Plays It Safe focuses on playground safety skills, but playing successfully in a group also requires self-regulation, an emotional skill.

Each book is reviewed by a tea

Reviews

[Kayo C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sluggars Car Wash would be a fun read aloud that could be turned into an exercise in word problems. This would be especially fitting in my class because my students always enjoyed read alouds and so I helped coax them into enjoying word problems by telling them that word problems are simply stories and they can enjoy them much like the stories we hear aloud. They can put themselves in the charaters places and make text to self connections, make predictions on what they think will happen (have more or less things and tell me why). This book would also be a good idea as a center to have the kids model what the children had to buy for the carwash (ex: spongest $8.13. They could create a picture of a sponge and show a way they would pay $8.13).

[Candice Mckinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this book because it includes diverse children and the literature is well developed. Sluggers Car Wash focuses on the concept of counting and adding money. Students can add up how much money the team is making as they read each page of the book. It really is a fun book to read and teachers can do a mini lesson with this book before starting a math lesson on counting money.

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 3 out of 5]

Earning money with a car wash, from buying supplies, counting back change, dealing with bills and coins, etc.

Feels like all the details of the problems get a bit in the way of the story.

[Gail · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun way to reinforce money math. As well as a great way to help those of us who STILL have a hard time counting back change.

[Jurene · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good money math book. A little redundant, But repetition does help with memorization and grasping concepts.

[Suzanne Lorraine Kunz Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun problem solving and math book!

[KaitandMaddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think they solidly grasp dollars and cents and the decimal point, but counting up to make change confused them both a bit.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great problem solving book. It starts with a team that is about to play in the playoffs fr baseball. They are excited but worried because their uniform shirts are so dirty and holey. In order to raise the money themselves, they decided to host a car wash that will allow them to raise the money needed. The book goes into money detail, literally breaking apart each coin or bill given to pay for the car wash as well as the change back due to the customers. The tracking of the money through the entire process is done exceptionally well. Charts are used to keep track of the money collected. At the end of the book, it provides a section titled For Adults and Kids. Here it breaks certain parts of the story, to incorporate children's interaction to the book by asking the children to count the money themselves, and then provide them with the correct amount located on the chart board.

[Dolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is another fun story in the MathStart Level 3 series by Stuart J. Murphy. We like these books; they incorporate math principles into the story and show how math is fun and necessary for everyday life.

The story offers a lesson on adding and subtracting sums of money as well as a lesson on profit, after taking out the costs of supplies. We enjoyed the humor of the story and the lesson on everyone pitching in to help.

Overall, it's an entertaining story with colorful and informative illustrations. We enjoyed reading this book together and we reminisced about our favorite Barney Saltzberg book, Animal Kisses.

[Inna Nako · Rating 5 out of 5]

-book teaching addition and subtraction of money
-a team needs to make money for new t-shirts, so they decide to do a carwash and charge $3.50 per car.
-Then they add or subtract the money as it comes and as they use it for supplies
-includes activities in the back of the book dealing with money
-vocabulary such as quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, dollars
-i also noticed there is a girl in a wheelchair that is part of the team, and i like how she is involved in everything the team does-encourages students to participate

[Maxwoodliff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book about the financial investments required to start up a business that hopefully will gain money. It would be beneficial to use in my class when we are discussing money and the different amounts that are needed. I could use the examples in the book to ask questions to my students.

[Brandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is funny and easy to relate to, but it also could very easily be incorporated into a lesson on counting money. I would use this book in 1st or 2nd grade. In the back, there are suggested activities for kids, which could be great to do in the classroom after reading this book!

[Haley Sterritt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuart Murphy has so many good math books! This is another that can be used for counting money as well as adding and subtracting it. This provides real life word problems and solutions using math. Practices using dollars and cents.

[Cws]

JEAROS3-Mur

[Jj · Rating 1 out of 5]

informational/educational picture book