Tally Cat Keeps Track

Teach children about tallying with the help of Tally McNally!

Harris, Trudy.
Tally Cat Keeps Track.
September 2010.
Lerner Publishing Group.
Review copy provided courtesy of publisher.

Children will learn about tallying through a special story told by Tally McNally (AKA the Tally Cat)! Tally McNally uses tally marks to keep track of every part of his, yet also does so to make sure that he's always the winner. However, all of his tallying pays off in the end, when he falls in a sewer drain after trying to prove himself the best. He knows who is the smallest, who is the tallest, who is the smartest, etc and therefore, knows who to call in order to help get him out of that wretched drain! At the end of the book readers are provided with information (that even I hadn't previously thought of) - how using tally marks is just like counting with your fingers (except it allows you to go A LOT higher than just to 10)!

Learning/Reading Activity:

• Introduce tallying as a hands on activity using the Lego Tally activity in which children are sorting legos and then tallying to get a total for each color.
  
• Play the Dog Bone Tally Game

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