How Much Is a Million?

This is one of my favorite math books. It does a great job of giving students a better understanding of just how big very large numbers are, through using multiple humorous examples. The illustrations of these examples will get kids excited to learn about more complex math. My favorite example was

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comparing the size of fish bowl big enough to hold 1 million goldfish as the same size to hold 1 whale.

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This book is an amazing way to help children in elementary school get a grip on the idea of just how big a million, a billion, and a trillion really is. The author uses ridiculous ideas, like how many kids it would take to make a line from the earth to the moon, but they're ones that when I read

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this as I kid, they stayed in my head. The art by Steven Kellogg really stands out, and helps to make the ideas a little more understandable to kids. Yeah, sure, a million is a big number, but just how big? The pictures and the story itself help to show just HOW MUCH is a million!

I absolutely love this book! I loved it when I read it as a first grader, and I still love it reading it over again! It's an amazing way to get into a little kid's head how much a million is, because telling them that it's a 1 with six zeros after it just doesn't seem to get the idea across. The pictures help to bring the entire story to life, and make it a very interesting and enjoyable read.

I would use this in a classroom by asking the kids, after reading the book, to create their own picture of how much a million is. It could be as outrageous as a line of kids from here to the moon, or something a little more simple.

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This is a great example of informational text. The story itself is informational but then there are deeper explanations in the back about each "if a million..." statements. It gives a very concrete showing of how much a million would be.

This book is made to help explain to a child how much one million, one billion, and one trillion is in ways they can understand. It uses things that a child can relate to, like how tall one million kids standing on each others shoulders would be or how big a fish bowl would have to be to hold one

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million gold fish. It talks about how many days, weeks, months, and/or years it would take to count to one million, one billion, and one trillion.
The pictures in this book are AWESOME! I wish I had had this book as a child! I love it!
I would use this book in a classroom for sure! It's a great book to help children see and understand in a physical sense how big of a number one million actually is. I would use this book to get the classroom involved in an activity where we might try to figure out how many M&Ms it would take to fill up certain spaces, like a bowl, a box, a glass, or even the classroom.

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How Much Is a Million? is a great book for explaining big numbers. It shows how big the numbers are. For example, it showed it would take someone 23 days to count to a million and 95 years to count to a trillion, and that's without taking a break and counting pretty fast. Or, a bowl would have to

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be as big as a stadium to fit a trillion goldfish! And, if a trillion kids stood on each other's shoulders, they would almost reach Saturn's rings.

It has awesome illustrations because it was done by one of the greatest illustrators, Steven Kellogg. The illustrations are cartoony, but really good. The reason that I cannot explain these pictures is that my mom can't accept that some things just are what they are, even when they are. These illustrations are colorful and detailific. Looking at the size of the stadium goldfish bowl in the illustration really helped my understanding of how much space a trillion goldfish would take.

I recommend this book to people who want to learn about big numbers like a million, a billion, and a trillion.

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how much is a million is a good book for learning ho to compare things. the author took time to even include an explaination of each of his calculations in the back. this book has cute pictures of kids doing things that would add up to a million. he uses an example of gold fish needing a tank big

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enough to hold a whale to hold a billion gold fish. it very fun to read because it answers some questions that i knoe all kids share. the book would be great for a multiplacation lesson in 10's. maybe seeing how many years it would take for a person to count in 10's as used in the back of the book.

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This book has illustrations that are engrossing!. The author takes concepts of large numbers such as a million, billion, and trillion and compares them to sizes people can visualize. For example, if a million kids climbed onto each others shoulders, it would be farther up than airplanes can fly.

I

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would use this book first as a read-aloud for pleasure, letting the students really soak in the pictures and ideas of estimation and measurement of things in the world. Then I would read it to begin a Math lesson on estimation using non-standard measurement. After reading the book, the students could talk about the final two pages where the author explains his calculations. This could be an example for students to begin thinking about how to estimate height, size and capacity. Students could use this information to create their own How Much problems. Often size is so hard to explain, and this is an interesting and fun way to explain things.

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Great book to read when starting to talk about place values, especially a million. I love how this book tried to put a million into perspective for our students.

This is an excellent example of an informational text because it gives accurate information. The author helps students get their minds around large numbers such as one million by relating it to terms they understand, such as goldfish.

Illustrations: watercolor and ink (?)
(I did not give it a rating,

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because character and plot, etc. are not applicable in informational books)

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Review: This book is a good example of non-fiction because it gives facts and information. It helps students understand the value of one million by providing real-life examples that help put the large number into perspective.
Level: Primary, Intermediate

A great book for math or science. This book tells about counting to a million and a billion. This is a great non-fiction book as it makes good realistic comparisons. The book is wonderfully illustrated and shows these illustration about counting. Good for the younger inquisitive student.

Expressions of a million, a billion, and a trillion.

If you are not a “math” person (which would include me), How Much Is A Million makes the concepts of large numbers easy to understand. This beautifully illustrated test explains the concepts of million, billion, and trillion in kid-friendly terms: “If you wanted to count from one tone

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million, it would take you about 23 days.” Also useful to adults would be the note from the author which explains how he arrived at his calculations.

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Genre: Fantasy
Review: This is a good example of a fantasy because although there is number concept involved, it involves the students talking to a wizard and traveling all over the place.
Media: Watercolors, Pencil, Colored Pencil
Style: There was a lot of onomatopoeia and imagery in the story.

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There were references made to the numbers that would allow students to paint a picture of what that would look like in their minds.

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How Much Is a Million by David M. Schwartz is a great book about children that have many questions about numbers and how big they are. The pictures in this book matched the author’s words so that students could further visualize difficult concepts. There are many activities that students could do

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with this book. One activity could be for the teacher to ask the students how high would a tower be if you stacked a hundred blocks on top of one another. Another activity to do with manipulatives is lining a hundred objects up side by side and calculating how long the objects would extend. There are many other activities that you could do with this book. I would defiantly recommend this book to teachers to read to their students because it is a fun way to teach students about numbers and how big they are. I would defiantly read this book to my students because I want to teach my students how important numbers are. I think this book is a wonderful way to get students to conceptualize very large numbers.

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This book illustrates just how big of a number a million is using interesting illustrations with characters familiar to this series of books.

This book starts out strong trying to make the abstract number of a million concrete for young learners. It loses track however when it compares the abstract

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concept of a million with the abstract concept of the distance to the moon and Saturn. Young learners who cannot grasp a million will gain no understanding by having it compared to other things that they have no grasp of.

This would be a great book to have in the classroom and use the beginning of it to try to illustrate the concept of a million to young learners. I would not go past the first few pages though. It would also be great to have on hand for independent reading time for learners to grasp their own understanding in their own time.

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Summary: this book compares everyday things to a million, a billion, and a trillion. Such as, it would take 23 days to count to one million. If you counted to a billion it could take 95 years and it you counted to a trillion it would take 200,000 years.

Personal Reaction: I personally liked this

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book because it really puts in perspective how big numbers can really get but not so much though that it is intimidating.

Classroom Extension Ideas:
1. In the classroom, we could see how high we can count.
2. In the classroom, we can count M&M’s

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I liked the way this book lays out comparing large numbers for kids. Some of the information I didn't even know! It really puts large numbers in perspective for kids, which in my opinion, is the first major step in learning and grasping an understanding of large numbers. The illustrations reminded

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me of Magic School Bus (a book I love!). Definitely a great book to read to kids learning larger numbers, but the easiness of the words within the book can be read to all ages.

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This is a charming book that I loved reading to my students! It always garnered a lot of "Whoa"s! Cute, colorful photographs help illustrate the vastness of numbers and math.

Marvelosissimo the Mathematical Magician talks about the enormity of millions, billions, and trillions. The characters are all human, with children who represent the age of the readers. There is not much of a setting or theme, though it does address a child's natural curiosity of the unknown. The

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style is very simple, and the illustrations are a wonderful display of the text and ideas expressed. This is a very enjoyable and educational book, and I would include it in my collection.

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This book was a great informational book. The book was written to show children how to imagine how big a million, billion and trillion really is. Its hard for many people to understand how big these numbers are. So the author tries to teach by comparing a million children with the tallest mountains

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and biggest buildings. He states if this book had a million tiny stars, it would fill seventy pages. He continues to make comparisons to visual things such as whales, a city harbor and a giant roll of paper.

I really thought this book was a good representation of trying to teach children about gigantic numbers. The author has made great comparisons and illustrations to portray how big these numbers really are. I really enjoyed this book because it kept my attention throughout by seeing what was going to be compared next. It was really interesting at what lengths you would have to go to count a million, billion or a trillion.

This book could be used for many different learning units in the classroom. To aide with the visualization I could possibly gather some of the items mentioned in the reading (such as seventy pages) and this would be visually stimulating to the children. Another idea I could use in coordination with this book would be to use the note from the author in the book. The note is at the end of the book and has many ideas about numbers and by reviewing the note from the author, this could possibly lead to discussion questions.

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I liked the book How Much is a Million? for several reasons. First, it is an informational text to teach children number sense. This book compares how much a million or a billion is to relatable topics. For example, "If one million kids climbed onto one another's shoulders, they would be taller

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than the tallest buildings, higher than the highest mountains, and farther up than airplanes can fly." This can help students really visualize how large the number 1 million is. Second, this nonfiction piece is engaging for young readers and organized in a clear way with accurate representations. With the help of a magician, the author creates visual pictures and illustrations to help readers conceptualize these large numbers in an interesting way. Finally, this book can really help with the growing problem of innumeracy. This book is accessible and engaging for many students, and is a must for my classroom! The big idea of this book is to help students have a better understanding of number sense.

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This book helps young readers understand bigger numbers more visually. They can see how much a million actually is. I myself never would have thought it would take 23 days to count to a billion. He uses many different examples using gold fish and people which I think children would love. It says

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that if you were to stack a billion people on top of each other, it would lead into space! All the way to different planets. This will get students interested and make them want to learn more. Also, like I said it shows them just how big these numbers really are.

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The author find creative ways to help kids get the concepts of numbers, and count to a million. The illustrations are amazing, and the book is very delightful. A great introduction to math as it explains how to visualize a number that big.