Featured Topic: Dr. Seuss Day Math Activities

Many schools celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss by incorporating Dr. Seuss books and activities for those books. Consider using One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish to develop mathematical concepts and skills.

Seussical Combinations

The book states that not one of them is like another. These original Mathwire problems challenge students to use combinations to figure out how many unique fish could be created.

  • Challenge younger students to find all of the different combinations for Seussical Fish using attributes from the story. Making an orderly list is an effective strategy for solving this problem. Other students might opt to draw the solution.
  • Older students will enjoy the challenge of the Fishy Combinations problem which involves many more options. The model solution uses the multiplication principle of counting to easily solve the problem. Students may also use a tree diagram or list all of the possible red fish, then extend this list to the blue and black fish combinations.


Seussical Numbers

After reading the book, challenge students to recall how numbers were used in the book. Create a class list of these uses, then reread the book and add to the list, as needed, to capture all of the Seussical numbers.

Additional Web Resources for Seussical Math

  • Goldfish Estimation challenges students to estimate the number of goldfish in three different containers. Goldfish estimation slips are available to download as a PDF file
  • Red Fish Blue Fish Patterns presents three different patterning activities for a math center. PDF files are provided for the fish patterns and blank fish students may color to create their own patterns.
  • See Virtual Vine activities for the book which include suggestions for graphing, creating a class fish counting book or a fish print quilt.
  • View some additional One Fish Two Fish activities.

Fish Games



St. Patrick's Day Math Activities


Math Manipulatives Series

The first installment of this series is now online. Math Manipulatives: Investigating Tangrams is a one-stop resource for tangrams that includes math-literature connections and online resources to help students use these puzzle pieces to develop spatial sense.


Recent Additions to Mathwire.com

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About Mathwire.com

Mathwire.com is designed to provide activities and appropriate worksheets for teachers to use in their classrooms.   All activities and worksheets support the constructivist approach to learning mathematics and the NCTM Standards.

Activities:   The activities on this site were developed by Terry Kawas and the teachers in districts where she has worked as a math consultant and coach or with students she has taught in college math-methods courses.   The activities are classroom-tested by teachers and appropriate modifications have been made to reflect this field-testing.   These activities are posted online in an effort to share quality activities and routines within the mathematics community.

Terms of Use:   Teachers are welcome to download any of the activities for free use in their classrooms.   No activities may be copied for use on other websites or included in commercial products without permission in writing from Terry Kawas, webmaster.   Contact Terry Kawas