Problem Solving Picture Books for Math

Problem solving picture books can boost your children’s understanding of how to solve math problems and enhance general problem solving skills.

Both types of problem solving involve deep thinking to recognize an issue and think through possible solutions to get to a resolution. We tend to call general problem solving “logical thinking”. If you’re looking for information about that type of problem solving, click here.

In this post, we will focus on mathematical problem solving. In math, you might need to literally solve a problem (or an equation) and need to figure out how to do that. Or, you might be faced with a mathematical question that isn’t so cut and dry as an equation. Sometimes, these are word problems, and other times they are intellectual challenges similar to the following:

“A farmer has pigs and chickens. In total, he owns 20 animals. If there are 54 legs, how many of each animal live on the farm?” (P.S. The answer is 7 pigs and 13 chickens.)

Luckily, there are some general strategies that tend to work well to get to any math solution before a child has the handy-dandy tool of algebra to help.