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Twelve Snails to One Lizard: A Tale of Mischief and Measurement
Mischief and measurement go hand in hand in this hilarious story about a beaver trying to fix the leak in his clam and the bull-frog who plays a big joke on him.
Wonderfully funny art, a jolly text, and comic-like pages make this an ideal classroom and story hour title. A unique list of measurement facts about the animals featured in the book is included.
Wonderfully funny art, a jolly text, and comic-like pages make this an ideal classroom and story hour title. A unique list of measurement facts about the animals featured in the book is included.
32 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 1997
6 people are currently reading
90 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 15, 2023
This book tells the story of a beaver who needs to measure a piece of wood to make a dam, and the difficulties he faced trying to indirectly measure at the advice of a bullfrog. When the bullfrog is watching the beaver build the dam he talks about how his kind could never do such a thing, as they do not have teeth like beavers do. The beaver then shares his concern that he can’t measure the river right to block the flow of water to keep the pond full and needs to figure out how to measure the width across. The bullfrog the tells him about how a teacher of his cousin said it’s 36 inches across and suggests ways for him to measure the wood to be 36 inches. He suggests 36 healthy snails that would each be an inch long, but they are too slow when beaver tries to line them up to measure. Next, he suggests, 3 lizards since they are each a foot and 36 inches is 3 feet, but they won’t cooperate with the beaver and line up. Next, he suggests a snake who he knows is a yard long, which is 36 inches, but she tries to kill beaver! When he goes to tell the frog of this, he says that he knows the snake is a yard and can prove it and tells him to wait there. He comes back with a yardstick and says to beaver that it is exactly a yard and divided into feet and inches and is sure to match the length of the snake. Beaver becomes mad as he then says he could have saved time if the frog would have told him about the yard stick and let him use that in the first place. A funny and cute story about measurement, specifically the connection of how indirect and direct measurement can work, that is a great read for a math lesson or classroom in general. The title itself also offers an opportunity to teach about proportions and ratios and how they can connect to measurement. I also loved the willingness of the beaver to try anything to measure his dang log. I don’t normally like math books, but this one was impressive.
May 15, 2023
This is a story of a frog and beaver trying to measure out a branch to fit a spot to stop the water before the rainy season ends. This book can help kids know about different measurement conversions. The book explicitly states that 1 yard is 3 feet which is 36 inches and the book uses these measurements as different animals like 36 snails, 3 iguanas, and 1 long snake. The illustrations are creative and simple with all the animals sharing the same style of face. I especially like the parts in the book where the beaver tries and fails to measure each different set of animals. For those pages, the illustrations are separated into different boxes showing beaver trying to measure with the animals. The writing itself is simple and I like how they gave the frog more of a Cajun accent when he talks. Overall this is a great book to teach kids about different measurements.
May 15, 2023
This book would be a fantastic addition to a math lesson on measuring and conversion (inches, feet, and yards). This book does a fantastic job of explaining and repeating the conversions while providing students with an entertaining method to break down these ideas. Another illustration of the conversions performed throughout the novel is included in the book's back section, along with some interesting information about the creatures shown.
May 15, 2023
This book is great for including lessons about measurement in math lessons and a great way to keep students engaged. An excellent conversion would be this book (inches, feet, and yards). The conversions are thoroughly explained and repeated in this book, which also gives students a fun way to dissect these concepts. The book's back portion includes a further depiction of the conversions carried out during the story, along with other fascinating details about the creatures shown.
February 22, 2022
Shows all these historically "weak" and "useless" animals coming together to help the beaver rebuild his dam. Super cute way to teach about team work and even though it might not be your best subject or topic that if you work as a team you be able to get the job done.
November 30, 2019
This would be a great book to teach inches, feet, and yards. I'll keep this book in mind for our math lesson next semester.
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February 15, 2011This is a great math literature book I would use to teach about measurements. It compares an inch to a length of a snail and a foot to the length of a lizard. These analogies will help students understand that 12 inches is equivalent to one foot and also assist in helping students understand other units of measurements.
January 13, 2013
This would be a great book to supplement a math unit where the goal is to understand measurement and conversion (inch, feet, and yard). This books gives kids a fun way to breakdown these concepts and does a good job explaining and repeating the conversions. In the back of the book is another visual of the conversions made throughout the story as well as some cool facts about the animals depicted.
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October 4, 2011 Good introduction to measurements book. Would be fun to read the book than have the students find things around the class that can be used for equivalent measurements. Great for showing the relationship of centimeters to inches and inches to feet.
March 3, 2012
This book teaches students about measuring. It starts out with inches, then moves to feet, and then yards. I think that this book is just so cute! This also follows the Van Hiele model. It uses snail units to show children how to measure vs. jumping into more formal instruments of measuring.
December 2, 2012
This is another cute book about measurement. It uses animals to represent inches, feet, and yards. It gives the students a much easier way of understanding each unit and being able to know when it is appropriate to use it. There is also an adorable lesson plan using ribbons to go along with it.
June 28, 2008
Nicely illustrates how a standard allows things to be measured.
October 13, 2009
This would be GREAT in a few years when I am in a math class. It was still a fun story but I couldn't understand all that was going on.
March 2, 2010
Great book for measurement. Discusses different units of measurement. standard and non-standard. includes approximation.
May 22, 2011
This is a cute book and it really helped my students get to know the link between inches, feet, and yards.
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February 12, 2013Good for:
1. Measuring
2. Estimation
3. Very colorful and funny, young kids will enjoy it
1. Measuring
2. Estimation
3. Very colorful and funny, young kids will enjoy it
March 16, 2015
Bubba the bullfrog helps Milo the beaver build a dam by explaining to him the concepts of inches, feet, and yards.
May 7, 2016
Engaging way to introduce measurements to kids.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
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