Use math books for preschool to help children learn important math skills through storytelling. Children naturally gravitate towards stories and they take away so many important lessons and skills by looking at the pictures and making connections to the words read aloud. They can be used to teach counting, patterning, measurement, addition, and so much more!
Math Books for Preschool
We have put together a list of fantastic math picture books that will help your preschoolers learn about math! Topics include:
- Books about Colors
- Shape Books
- Sorting Books
- Counting Books
- Measuring Books
- Patterning Books
Need a great math activity? Grab some of our free ten-frame counting cards? Just fill out the form below to grab the dinosaur set! We also have them in many other themes including outer space, valentines, winter, gingerbread, and more!
Color Books for Preschool
Red, green, or blue – learning colors is fun to do! These math books for preschool teach color recognition and color names in a fun and engaging way.
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These books about colors will help your preschoolers learn color names, find the colors in our natural world, and even mix primary colors to make new hues.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr.
A timeless classic, this math picture book for preschoolers teaches colors, animals, and encourages confidence in emerging readers. Preschoolers love to retell the story as they read each page from memory.
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by James Dean
In this color book for preschoolers, Pete’s shoes turn different colors as he steps in all kinds of things outside. This original Pete the Cat book includes a catchy song and rhyme that preschoolers love to sing as they read the story. Pete’s positive attitude throughout the story makes this color book a must-have.
Bear Sees Colors by Karma Wilson
This math picture book for preschoolers is full of bright colors and rhyming text. Join Bear as he searches through nature for some of his favorite colors. There are lots of colorful items to search for on each page that also helps build preschoolers’ vocabulary and attention to detail.
A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni
This book about colors for preschoolers follows a chameleon who is searching for a color to call his own. Elephants are gray and pigs are pink but a chameleon changes colors wherever they go. A simple story of self-confidence and acceptance with lots of colorful learning opportunities.
Green is a Chile Pepper by Roseanne Greenfield Thong
Help your preschooler learn their colors in both English and Spanish with this book about colors. With Spanish vocabulary sprinkled throughout the pages and a glossary in the back, this book emphasizes the beauty of Spanish culture and helps preschoolers build color recognition.
Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert
This preschool color book plants a rainbow of gorgeous flowers! As the colorful seeds begin to sprout and blossom, young children will love seeing the rainbow of colors on display. Preschoolers learn the colors of the rainbow as well as the names of many flowers.
Color Ideas
Shape Books for Preschool
Shapes are everywhere! These shape books will teach your preschoolers shape names and sides, along with important characteristics of each shape!
Round is a Tortilla by Roseanne Greenfield Thong
In this book of shapes, children learn to find shapes in the world around them. Many of the objects in this preschool math book are Latino, so this story encourages diversity and culture. With fun rhyming text, a Spanish glossary, and shapes everywhere, this book will encourage your preschool to spy shapes all around!
Tangled: A Story About Shapes by Anne Miranda
From circle to trapezoid, this shape book for kids introduces us to all sorts of shapes! The shapes get tangled up at the playground and need some help getting free. Perfect for kids who love shapes and learning something new, this book is sure to get your brain thinking.
Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh
A clever shape story for preschoolers that ties math and art together. The mice learn how to use shapes to create pictures like a house and a tree. How can they use their knowledge of shapes to scare away the cat? They make big shape versions of themselves! It’s perfect for teaching preschoolers how to combine shapes to make new shapes and infusing creativity and art into your math lesson.
Shape by Shape by Suse MacDonald
In this math book for preschoolers, we make guesses about what animal is hiding underneath the last page. As you turn each page, die-cut shapes appear and give us clues to the animal. Each page calls attention to the shape and where we can find that shape on the animal. It’s great fun and your preschooler will have their shapes mastered in no time!
Circle, Square, Moose by Kelly Bingham
This hilarious math book about shapes is full of informative pages. A naughty Moose and his friends try to disrupt the story with their antics. The reader must remind the animals that they are in the wrong book and they need to leave! A clever and imaginative read that has kids learning their shapes while laughing out loud the whole time.
Patterning Activities
Books About Sorting
Whether you are sorting by color, shape, or size, these math sorting books for preschoolers are the perfect sorting introduction.
The Button Box by Margarette S. Reid
In this sorting book for preschoolers, a young boy discovers his grandmother’s button box. He likes to sort the buttons in many ways, by color, by texture, and by shine. He sorts them in lots of ways and models how many ways there are to sort. This book is a perfect fit for a preschool classroom and has great learning potential used alongside a tin full of buttons.
Sort It Out by Barbara Mariconda
In this math book for preschoolers, Packy the Packrat must sort out his abundant collection of toys and objects. He sorts by color, texture, shape, and purpose, and he even sorts by things that can open and close! A perfect book to extend sorting beyond color and size and an adorable read for preschoolers.
Sorting at the Market by Tracey Steffora
Sorting at the market is a simple math sorting story that shows all the ways that we sort from day to day. With bright and colorful photographs, this math book for preschoolers teaches basic sorting skills and asks children to decide how they will sort the objects. Perfect for reinforcing early sorting skills!
3 Little Firefighters by Stuart J. Murphy
In this math book for preschoolers, three tiny firefighters sort through a set of miscellaneous buttons to find three sets of matching buttons to fix their costumes. They must sort quickly and find their matching buttons before they miss the big parade! An adorable preschool math book that helps children learn to sort through dramatic play and fun.
Sorting Activities
Counting Books
Picture books that infuse number sense practice opportunities help bring numbers to life. They encourage children to practice math skills without pressure or tons of materials to prep and assemble. Number sense is a critical part of preschool and kindergarten math development which includes many subskills like rote counting, one to one correspondence, and subitizing. Grab these simple counting books for your learners and watch as their mathematical world gets a little bit clearer!
For even more counting books, check out our whole counting books post!
1, 2, 3 to the Zoo by Eric Carle
The perfect book for teaching numbers to toddlers! This book counts zoo animals from 0 to 10 and visually shows the numbers on each page and adds the animals to the train as the story progresses. Beautifully illustrated in classic Eric Carle style, this wordless book is a must-have for any toddler learning their numbers.
Bear Counts by Karma Wilson
In this counting book for kids, Bear teaches toddlers to count from 0 to 5 by observing nature and playing with his furry friends. A perfect introduction to teaching numbers to toddlers and it’s a book that kids absolutely adore!
Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews
In this clever counting book, children learn to use black dots to represent numbers from 0-10 in creative ways. From a sun to a seven spotted snake, these black dots can be turned into something creative and artistic with a little imagination. It’s one of the most favorite math books for preschool!
10 Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle
This counting book for preschoolers is based on a true story and takes on a worldwide journey via the sea. 10 little rubber ducks find themselves tossed overboard from a large ship and begin to drift away. Each page offers counting and ordinal number practice (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), plus an adorable and surprising ending.
Chicka Chicka 123 by Bill Martin Jr.
This counting book is great for developing advanced counting skills for kindergarteners. Watch as the numbers from 1-20 climb to the top of the coconut tree… but there’s more! Switch to counting by tens as numbers 30 – 100 make their way up the coconut tree too! This zany story follows all the numbers back down again as the tree gets much too full! A great companion book to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom too!
Twenty Big Trucks in the Middle of the Street by Mark Lee
Counting from 1 to 20 sure is fun when you have this counting picture book full of trucks! One ice cream truck breaks down in the street creating a traffic jam of epic proportions. One clever little boy comes up with a plan to get those 19 vehicles back on the road again.
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by James Dean
This rocking story sure makes counting fun! Great for kindergarteners, this counting book teaches simple subtraction and counting skills. Rock along with Pete as he loses button after button but still manages to keep a smile on his face.
Counting Ideas
Books about Measurement
Children learn about measurement in their day-to-day world from a young age. They learn about size, time, and weight by comparing one item to another. These measurement books for preschoolers offer a deeper look into how we can measure the world around us and why using tools to measure is important.
Me and the Measure of Things by Joan Sweeney
In this math book for preschoolers, we learn about the tools we use to measure and the words we use to describe the measure of things. Preschoolers will learn about rulers, scales, measuring cups, and spoons as they learn about how we measure in our daily lives. This book is a great introduction to a measurement unit and gives kids a relatable and fun story to enjoy.
Inch by Inch by Leo Lionni
This measurement story for kids introduces us to a small green inchworm who measures all the birds he meets as he goes about his day. An adorable math story for preschoolers that helps children see the value in measurement and quick thinking.
Super Sand Castle Saturday by Stuart J. Murphy
In this creative measurement book, three kids head to the beach and work together in a sand castle contest. Who can make the tallest tower, the deepest moat, and the longest wall? The three friends use all sorts of tools to measure their sand castles including shovels, spoons, and their own feet! This measurement story is so engaging for young readers and will have them trying their hand at measuring their sand creations.
Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
In the book, Actual Size, the animals on each page are shown in actual size. This helps preschoolers relate to the realistic size of things and use measuring tools to find out how long or how tall an animal’s teeth, hand, or body really are. This book is fascinating to young kids and with good reason, it’s as close to these intimidating animals as we’ll ever get! It’s one of the most unique math books for preschool.
Books about Patterns
Patterning in preschool builds the foundation for harder math skills to come. These pattern books expose children to repeated patterns with colors, shapes, lines, or even sounds.
Pattern Fish by Trudy Harris
In this math patterning book, we see pattern fish of all sorts of colors and shapes. These pattern fish introduce preschoolers to a whole world of patterns! Whether we focus on the color patterns or the sound of a seahorse munching on seaweed, this pattern-focused book is a great way to incorporate gross motor movement into learning how patterns work.
Lots and Lots of Zebra Stripes by Stephen R. Swinburne
This short math book for preschoolers shares the presence of patterns in nature and beyond. Patterns can be simple or complex, but they are everywhere! Preschoolers love the interesting illustrations of animals and the outside world and will make connections to patterns in their own world.
Pitter Pattern by Joyce Hesselberth
We learn that patterns are everywhere in this fun book! The rain makes a pitter, pitter, pat and the aquarium is full of patterns with all the fish in the tank. What patterns will you find in this book? An exciting introduction into the world of patterning with sound, color, and nature.
Pattern by Henry Pluckrose
In this math book for preschoolers, we find patterns in all sorts of places. With simple text and matching photographs, this book introduces patterns in a clear and easy-to-understand way. It’s a book that encourages children to go search for patterns in their own outside world!
A-B-A-B-A A Book of Pattern Play by Brian P. Cleary
Full of examples, this pattern book spotlights patterns found in shapes, colors, objects, and even numbers! With catchy rhymes and bold illustrations, this pattern book is a great introduction to the world of patterns.
Patterning Activities
We hope this incredible list of math books for preschool helps teach your kids loads of math skills through storytelling!
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