It’s Probably Penny, Loreen Leedy

It’s Probably Penny is an informational text picture book.  It is about math and probability.  The beginning of the book is explaining to students about probability and what it is.  Then the teacher tells the students what their assignment is based on probability.  The rest of the book is one of the student’s homework assignment and she does the assignment based on her dog Penny.

It’s Probably Penny would be a great book to use to do a read aloud during a math lesson on probability.  The book has the key words that go with probability bolded.  So as I read this book to the class we would make an anchor chart where when we got to a bolded word we would stop, write it down on our chart, talk about the word and what we think it means, and then write down a definition on the chart.  Also, I would have my students do the homework assignment that is in the book.  They would go home and pick someone or something and make predictions about it, make a chart and see if they were right or wrong, and use the vocabulary words to talk about the probability of events.  This book is full of great activities.