Earth Day Hooray!

Earth Day Hooray!:
A Springtime Book for Kids

By Stuart J. Murphy, illustrated by Renée Andriani

Earth Day Hooray! is a vibrant picture book that weaves together environmental awareness and math concepts for young readers. The story follows Ryan, Luke, and Carly, members of the Maple Street School Save-the-Planet Club, as they set out to collect and recycle 5,000 aluminum cans. Their goal is to raise enough money to buy flowers and beautify Gilroy Park in time for the Earth Day celebration.

Throughout their journey, the children learn about teamwork, community involvement, and the importance of protecting the environment. The book introduces practical lessons on recycling and shows how small actions, like collecting cans, can make a big difference in the local community.

Math is a key theme in the story. As the children collect cans, they count and sort them into groups of tens, hundreds, and thousands, providing a hands-on lesson in place value. Visuals and diagrams in the book help young readers see how numbers add up, making abstract math concepts more concrete and engaging.

The book also features fun facts about recycling and the history of Earth Day, as well as activity suggestions for parents and teachers to extend learning beyond the story. Colorful, realistic illustrations keep children engaged and reinforce the story’s messages about caring for the planet and understanding math in everyday life.

Earth Day Hooray! is part of the MathStart series and is recommended for children in grades 2–4. It is an excellent resource for integrating reading, math, and science in the classroom or at home, especially around Earth Day.

Author: Stuart Murphy

David M. Schwartz is an acclaimed children’s author known for making math and science exciting and accessible through whimsical storytelling. He has written more than fifty books, including How Much is a Million?, G is for Googol, and If You Hopped Like a Frog, and is also a popular speaker who visits schools across the United States and abroad. Schwartz’s background includes work as an elementary school teacher, journalist, writing instructor, and Residential College Dean at Yale University, and his lifelong fascination with numbers and nature inspires much of his work. Stuart J. Murphy is a visual learning specialist and prolific children’s author, best known for his MathStart series, which uses stories and visual strategies to teach mathematical concepts. With a background in illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and experience in educational publishing and design, Murphy has authored 63 MathStart books, making him one of the world’s leading creators of mathematical storybooks for young readers.

Book Details:

Publisher: Harper Collins
Format: Paperback
Print length: 40 pages
Dimensions: 26.04 x 1.27 x 20.96 cm
Reading age: 8 - 11 years old
Published: 21 April 2016
ISBN: 978-0060001292

Read alongside these topics:

Place Value: 3

How can "Earth Day Hooray!" help in teaching this "Place Value: 3" topic?

Earth Day Hooray! is an excellent resource for teaching the topic of "Place Value: 3" because it integrates a real-world scenario with math learning. In the story, the characters set a goal to collect 5,000 aluminum cans for recycling, and as they work toward this goal, they count and group the cans in ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands. This hands-on approach helps students visualize and understand how numbers are composed of different place values, reinforcing the concept that the digit in each place (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands) determines its value in the overall number.

As students follow along, they see the characters sorting cans into bags of 100 and groups of 1,000, making the abstract idea of place value concrete and relatable. The book also encourages children to add and regroup numbers as they track their progress, providing repeated practice with three-digit and four-digit numbers. By connecting math to an engaging story and a meaningful project, Earth Day Hooray! makes learning place value accessible, memorable, and fun for students in second to fourth grade.

What activities can be done with kids to extend the math concepts from the book?

There are many engaging activities you can do with kids to extend the math concepts from Earth Day Hooray! and reinforce place value, counting, and environmental awareness:

Can Collection Simulation: Set up a classroom or home recycling drive where children collect real or pretend cans. Have them group cans into sets of 10, 100, and 1,000, just like in the story, to practice bundling and counting by place value.
Math Journals: Ask students to record how many cans they collect each day and keep a running total. They can use charts or place value mats to show how numbers change as they add more cans.
Recycling Graphs: Create bar graphs or pictographs to display the number of cans collected by each group or over several days. This helps students visualize data and practice interpreting graphs.
Earth Day Math Games: Play addition, subtraction, or multiplication games with an Earth Day theme, such as "Plant a Tree" or "Save a Tree Doubles and Triples," where students use math facts to progress in the game.
Sorting and Counting Activities: Use manipulatives like beans, bottle caps, or counters to create hands-on sorting and grouping activities. Children can group items in tens, hundreds, and thousands to reinforce place value.
Math and Literacy Centers: Set up centers with math and literacy tasks related to the book, such as sequencing events, solving word problems, or writing about ways to help the environment with math.
Extension Projects: Incorporate STEM activities like designing a recycling bin, measuring recycled materials, or researching recycling facts. Connect these projects to math concepts by estimating, measuring, and recording data.

These activities not only deepen understanding of place value and counting, but also promote teamwork, environmental responsibility, and real-world application of math skills.