A Second, a Minute, a Week with Days in It: A Book about Time

Math Is CATegorical ®

by Brian P. Cleary, Brian Gable (Illustrations)

The zany CATegorical cats introduce the measurement of time, from seconds, minutes, and hours up to decades. Brian Cleary and Brian Gable bring their winning teamwork to this playful, fun look at learning about time.

Genres: Mathematics, Picture Books, Childrens, Nonfiction, Arithmetic

32 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Nancy Kotkin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Text: 5 stars
Illustrations: 4 stars

Useful explanation of time that includes just the right amount of detail needed for young children to grasp these abstract concepts. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades are all covered. Rhyming text and cartoonish illustrations make learning fun and will entice kids back for repeat readings. Part of the Math is CATegorical series.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book summary: This is a book explaining time. It not only tells the components of time but also gives examples as to what good be done in that amount of time to make it feel more real. It also rhymes and has cute pictures which makes it a fun read.
Grade level: K-5
Appropriate classroom use: This would be a great book to use when doing a lesson on time. I would include this book in the lesson as a carpet read or to be a useful activity.
Indv. students who benefit: Students who have trouble understanding time.
Small group use: This could be a book where the students read it and come up with their own examples as to what they think can be done in a minute, or hour or so to check for understanding.
Whole class use: This is an appropriate book to read out loud, I even had fun reading it myself.
Related books: Books about time, books by the same author such as "Slide and Slurp, Scratch and Burp".
Multimedia connections: Available in kindle, school & library binding, and paperback.

[Madeline Bergstrom · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book features fun colored cats explaining he concept of time. Increments ranging from a second to a decade are discussed and supported with fun, relatable examples for children's to understand. Time can be a hard idea to conceptualize, and this book does a good job of briefly introducing some of the most commonly used time increments in a way that children can best grasp. I like the organization of this book and the fun examples used, such as the birthday song, but I would have liked to see a little more organization in the written text. The illustrations were vibrant and appealing to the eye, yet for me, this took away from the text's content a little too much. I would consider starting a more detailed lesson with a book similar to this one in order to gain my student's attention and interest. The fun colored cats help with this as well!

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brian P. Cleary is always fun and fabulous!

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

We have read other books in this series, such as Windows, Rings, and Grapes—a Look at Different Shapes and The Mission of Addition and really enjoyed them. This book was, in my opinion, a little fast paced for kids to follow and be able to grasp the concepts being taught. So, my opinion is that this might be a good book for reinforcing the concept of time vs. teaching.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This talks about seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, and decades. The book also mentions that we can measure time with different tools, but it doesn't go into as much detail about that.

There was rhythm and rhyme, but it didn't feel particularly noticeable or consistent as I read. That was disappointing because I love those aspects of the title.

I think I'm not particularly a fan of this series as a whole.

[Becky B · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rhyming picture book introducing readers to increments of time from one second up to a decade.

The rhyme in this sometimes got sacrificed for the subject matter. It was a bit clunky at times, and altogether dropped at the end. This could be used as a broad intro to various increments of time, but kids would definitely need an adult to break down each concept further to likely fully understand.

[Mariah Everett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book! Very creative, covers a lot about the concept of time with student friendly rhymes. It ends open-ended with the question, "What do we use to measure time?" which could be a great start to a lesson.

[Jill Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a lot of good demonstrations of each of the time measurements and helps how each one integrates with one another.

[Mad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teaching time for Language 2 children

I read this with my Language 2 class and they rated it a 5. They feel like they picked up vocabulary in a fun way with great illustrations.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun book in the Math is CATegorical series by Brian P. Cleary. We've read all of the books in this series and we really enjoy them.

The simple, rhyming narrative and cartoonish illustrations combine to make this a fun book to read aloud. It doesn't try to subtly insert a math lesson into the middle of a story, like the MathStart books by Stuart J. Murphy do. But the result is still educational and fun.

This book has a focus on time and uses simple depictions to help children understand units from seconds all the way up to a decade. We really enjoyed reading this book together and we will certainly look for more books by this author at our local library.

[Darcie Caswell · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging book for preschool and early elementary, teaching the concepts of time. This book keeps the concepts simple, and the illustrations bright and fun.

[Melody Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic way to recall days and time facts

Nice way of integrating rhyming and time facts to children. Highly recommend this book! Will look for more books by this author.