Data Science Books for Kids
Week four of quarantine life is now on the books. My husband and I continue to struggle with juggling kids at home and full-time work. Sometimes it feels manageable, and other times it feels like a house of cards. It’s chaotic, but since we’ve been given the task of leading our children’s daily education, you can bet that I’m going to sprinkle in some data topics.
Previously I covered data visualizations with “At-home graph week”. In this blog post, I will share some of my favorite data-focused books for kids. It’s a little tricky to find relatable content for both of my children (4 and 7 year olds), which actually focuses on data. The resources that I share below cover on a range of data and data foundation topics for kids.
Graphing
Title: Lemonade for Sale
Age: 6-10 yrs
Data Topic: Counting and graphing
Info: A very cute book about a kids club which sells lemonade in an effort to raise money to fix their clubhouse. Every day introduces new adventures including a high performing pre-sales parrot and unexpected competition from a local juggling act. They plot their earnings day over day in a bar graph. My girls loved cheering on their progress and identifying which days were most successful by reading the graph.
Read it Yourself: Buy or Read Aloud on YouTube
Title: Tally O’Malley
Age: 6-10 yrs
Data Topic: Tallying
Info: A family on vacation combats boredom by playing competitive tallying games on just about any subject. The family is so invested in tallying games that they have their own family tally medal which they took on vacation with them. The family ruthlessly bestows the tally medal on winner to winner throughout their trip. My daughters loved the competitive aspect of the book. This sparked our own household tallying wars which of course my husband and I lost.
Read it Yourself: Buy or Read Aloud on YouTube
Title: The Great Graph Contest
Age: 4-8 yrs
Data Topic: Counting, sorting and graphing
Info: In another competition based book, a frog and a lizard both boast that they can create the best graphs. A discerning snail suggests that they enter a graphing contest which he will judge. It’s a real sit on the edge of your seat adventure as they battle it out with quantity graphs, circle graphs, bar graphs and venn diagrams with a variety of objects. The book is fun and my daughters loved analyzing each new type of graph.
Read it Yourself: Buy or Read Aloud on YouTube
Title: Tiger Math
Age: 7-10 yrs
Data Topic: Graphing
Info: This graphing book really pulls on your heart strings. It tells the development story of TJ a Siberian Tiber cub. The kids were completely invested in following along with TJs growth progress through a variety of graphs and graph types. My oldest daughter was so inspired that she wrote her own book about TJ after.
Read it Yourself: Buy
Title: Tally Cat
Age: 7-10 yrs
Data Topic: Tallying
Info: This book teaches the basics of tallying. It is the story about Tally McNally, a far too competitive alley cat. Not only did Tally McNally always keep score, but he was also a real one upper. Having to win every competition eventually landed him in some trouble. He wound up stuck in the gutter while trying to prove that he could be the most wet cat in town. Lucily Tally McNally was able to call upon his knowledge of the town cat population to help him out of the gutter. The kids were pretty into the adventure of saving Tally McNally and it solidified their understanding of tallying.
Read it Yourself: Buy or Read Aloud on YouTube
Data Science General
Title: Keeya’s Numbers
Age: 4-10 yrs
Data Topic: Data use cases, storage, quality and analysis
Info: This book follows the life span of two numbers born at the same time as a baby girl named Keeya. The numbers represent baby Keeya’s height and weight. It follows their journey through data input and storage, data quality, data pipeline work, data analysis and use cases. This book humanizes the lifecycle of a data tuple in a way that even my 4 year old understood and enjoyed. It’s a great story that makes data relatable to children in a unique way.
Read it Yourself: Read Online
Estimation and Extrapolation
Title: Great Estimations
Age: 7-10 yrs
Data Topic: Estimation games
Info: This book teaches children estimation techniques to quantify large volumes of objects. My daughter liked the idea of being able to “shortcut” her way to an answer without having to count the whole page.
Read it Yourself: Buy
Title: Mike’s Peanuts
Age: 4-6 yrs
Data Topic: Estimation and linear extrapolation
Info: In this book, we watch as Mike the squirrel tries to dig up peanuts in the most efficient way possible. It introduces the concept of linear regression as we learn that the depth of the peanuts follows a predictable pattern!
Read it Yourself: Buy
Title: The Grapes of Math
Age: 5-10 yrs
Data Topic: Math riddles and estimation strategies
Info: Another great book teaching children about mathematical patterns and shortcut strategies through estimation and extrapolation techniques.
Read it Yourself: Buy
General Math
Title: Bedtime Math
Age: 4-10 yrs
Data Topic: Math brain teasers
Info: “Bedtime Math” is a great series which offers a collection of short stories followed by a series of math question for “wee kids”, “little kids” and “big kids”. Since quarantine began we start almost every week day with a few of these! My 4 yo loves the wee kid riddles and my 7yo loves the little kid (and sometimes big kid) questions.
Read it Yourself: Buy or Read Aloud on YouTube
Title: Math For All Seasons
Age: 4-8 yrs
Data Topic: Math riddles
Info: Each page features a different math focused riddle to solve. These short riddles are cute, clever and engaging. They are also a great way to start or end the day with your kiddos.
Read it Yourself: Buy
Thank You
Thanks for following along while I share some of our favorite data books in the Ellis household. If you also love any of these books, please let me know by commenting below or reaching out on twitter!
