ages 4-8

This book was enjoyed by myself and the kids I read it to. The ants on their way to a picnic held our attention with anticipation of how the ants were going to form thier lines. The 100 ants changed formation several times and it shows of all the possibilites there are with using different rows with the same 100 ants. It's a good way to introduce higher numbers and can include lessons on adding, multiplying and even subtraction since the little guy took off in the end. I found very enjoyable because of the cute repitional phrase that allowed the kids to feel familar with this book very fast.

My kindergartener and I were talking about money, one day, and he volunteered that he'd learned that ten dimes make a dollar when his kindergarten teacher read "One Hundred Hungry Ants". This book has no discussion of money, but it teaches that 100 equals 2 times 50, 4 times 25, 5 times 20, and 10 times 10, just the right lesson for him at that time. The rhythm of the rhyming works pretty well, and the pictures are very clever, adding a lot of enjoyment to the story. This one is worth reading again and again, if that's the kind of child you have.

As you might guess from the title of this little book, one hundred hungry ants are marching towards a picnic to get some yummies for their tummies. However, marching single file in a line 100 ants long is going to take way too long to get from where they are to where they want to be and the littlest ant is worried the food will all be gone by the time they get there. So he comes up with the idea of marching in 2 lines of 50 instead as a way of getting their faster.

That is just the first of several ideas the littlest ant has about how to divide up 100 ants in this story told by Elinor J. Pinczes and illustrated with what I assume are colored wood block prints. There are plenty of counting books, but "One Hundred Hungry Ants" deals with issues of multiplication and division. It seems to me that the key thing here is that sooner or later in reading this book young readers will be anticipating the littlest ant next suggestion. The front flap of the dust jacket points out that this book provides the math skills young kids can use to make change for a dollar and that certainly has to be a good thing, well worth the learning.