Media
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Short Bio
Valerie D. Johnson is a math whisperer, educator, speaker, and author of 1 2 3 Count with Me on Granddad's Farm. Her superpower is making learning math easy to understand, engaging, meaningful, and fun. Her mission is to ignite a love of math in all children, one book at a time!
Valerie has two passions—teaching math and empowering parents to support learning at home. During her tenure as a classroom teacher, Valerie noticed that students often exhibited math anxiety or expressed how much they disliked math. Parents also struggled with finding meaningful ways to support learning at home. She was inspired to write math-themed children's books to build math confidence in students and empower parents to support learning at home. As an instructional leader for over 30 years, she's learned that all children can enjoy and learn math at high levels if it's connected to the real world, visual, hands-on, promotes discussion—and is, most importantly, FUN!
Valerie is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and National PTA.
Long Bio
Valerie D. Johnson is a math whisperer, educator, speaker, and author of 1 2 3 Count with Me on Granddad's Farm. 1 2 3 Count with Me on Granddad’s Farm is a heartwarming and visually-engaging picture book that shows the love and everlasting bond between grandchildren and grandparents, while also teaching young readers to count to 10. Valerie's superpower is making learning math easy to understand, engaging, meaningful, and fun. Her mission is to ignite a love of math in all children, one book at a time!
During her tenure as a classroom teacher, Valerie noticed that students often exhibited math anxiety or expressed how much they disliked math. Some children did not like math because they had not mastered the foundational concepts, or they could not connect math to the real world. Other children learned math anxiety from math-anxious moms and dads. She was inspired to write math-themed children's books to build math confidence in students and empower parents to support learning at home. As an instructional leader for over thirty years, she's learned that all children can enjoy and learn math at high levels if it's connected to the real world, visual, hands-on, promotes discussion—and is, most importantly, FUN!
Fueled by her passion for teaching and learning, Valerie developed a program, Parent Lunch and Learn, to empower parents with tips, strategies, and hands-on activities to support learning at home. Her program ideas have been featured in publications such as Ideas Staff Can Use and 101 Ways to Create Real Family Engagement.
Valerie has facilitated workshops for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, Staff Development for Educators, and Virginia PTA. She was also awarded educational grants to create “Math Take-Home Toolkits” to support learning at home.
Valerie is a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, Kappa Delta Pi International Honor Society in Education, the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and National PTA.