I've been reading Anno's Math Games with ds6 and he loves these books (there are 3 I think). They have various puzzles, mazes, "visual riddles" (if that makes sense), etc. The House that Math Built is good too - dd3 likes that one too. They are both very visual - lots of things to look at, questions to ask, things to figure out. Math concepts are introduced in a fun way.

Does anyone know of any other books like this that encourage critical thinking for early elementary?

"The Grapes of Math," and other books by Greg Tang are fun. You might want to check them out at your library. My ds 5 has loved these!

The Number Devil
http://www.amazon.com/Number-Devil-Mathematical-Adventure/dp/0805062998

Have you looked at Edward Zaccaro's Primary Grade Challenge Math?

Just a couple of ideas on the fly this morning--

There are other Anno books, too (Anno's Magic Seeds, and The Mysterious Multiplying Jar--or something like that). A couple of favourites here have been Malba Tahan's "The Man who Counted" and Denise Schmandt-Besserat's "The History of Counting" (as well as the good old Number Devil, of course!)

Really good, but unfortunately out of print, are the Young Math series published by Thomas Y. Crowell in the '60s and '70s--simple presentation of some very sophisticated concepts. Our public library has a pretty good selection of these, but I do wish some reprint publisher would snap up the rights to those and re-release them.

Also terrific and out of print are Catherine Sheldrick Ross's geometry series (Squares, Circles, Triangles). I bug the publisher about once a year to reprint those, but haven't had any luck so far!

You could look at Julie Brennan's Living Math website; she has a fantastic list of books about math, sorted by grade and subject. www.livingmath.net

peace
minnie

ETA: Theoni Pappas's books are excellent, too! (Penrose the Mathematical Cat, etc.)

Thank you so much!! It looks like I can get most of these at our libraries - couldn't find the Thomas Y. Crowell ones though. I think the others should keep us busy for a while.

ETA: The Julie Brennan site looks like it has a lot of info too! Thanks!

My DS loves books by Johnny Balls.

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Figure-Tot...mp;s=books&qid=1266874314&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Why-Pi-Johnny-Ball/dp/0756651646/ref=pd_sim_b_2

They are colorful and full of interesting math topics.