How much is a Million? - By David M. Schwartz

This concept book was written by David M. Schwartz and illustrated by Steven Kellogg (HarperCollins 1985). The idea behind the book is to give students a concept of how large the quantity of one million, one billion, and one trillion are.

The book begins by stating, "If one million kids climbed onto one another's shoulders, they would be taller than the tallest buildings, taller than than the highest mountains, and farther up than airplanes can fly." The illustrates show children standing on each others shoulders stacked up higher than an airplane. It tells us how long it would take to count to one million (23 days). It goes on to say how big a fish bowl would need to be to fit one million goldfish and how many pages of tiny stars it would take to fit one million stars in the book. It then uses these same concepts with one billion and one trillion.

The readability lexile is ages 4-8. I think it is a good way to show the abstract ideas of these extremely large numbers.

Mini-lesson:
We could practice writing these numbers and use flashcards with partners.