Zero
Do you want to help build your child’s self esteem or have a discussion about low self esteem? Reading this book, Zero with your child can help lead important discussions about self esteem and how they feel about themselves. Zero is a big round number and when she looks at herself, all she sees is a hole and feels empty inside. Why can’t she be like the other numbers and count like they do? Zero looks at all of the other numbers and feels jealous of their different attributes. She tried to stretch and stretch to be more like 1 but that doesn’t work! Zero tried to double herself to be like 8, but that doesn’t work either! When reading this part, this can be an excellent time to talk about the feeling of “jealousy”.
Zero feels “deflated” because she had no value and the other numbers did. She tells Seven “I’ll never have value. I’ll never be part of the count”. Seven says “It’s what’s inside that counts most”. She then realizes that she is not empty inside, she is open! Zero begins seeing herself in a new light and realizes that if she rolls up with other numbers, she can add value to them. For example 2 would become 20, 3 would become 30, and so on. If you add enough zero’s to one, you can count up to a million (and even more!)
I love Zero because there are many different valuable lesson a child can learn from this book. There are language concepts including expanding vocabulary (e.g. value, count, etc) and abstract language (what does it mean to count, what does it mean by “counting” with numbers) and answering “wh” questions about the book. Depending on your child’s age and maturity, you can discuss times he or she may have felt like they “didn’t count” or “deflated”. What does deflated mean? When did you ever feel deflated? Give your child language models and expand on these various concepts. Also great for learning numbers, expanding knowledge of arithmetic, actions, prediction and sequencing. This book is creatively written and a valuable book to have in any child’s library.
Excellent when read with One also written by Kathryn Otoshi.
Are you a teacher? Check out this lesson plan here.
Check out this video here….
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