Saturday, November 29, 2008

Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

What is this? A bonus post? Hmmm.

Happy Saturday. Saturdays are reserved for those rare times when I want to say something that has nothing to do with art.

I want to recommend a great book by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith called Math Curse. A boy’s teacher, Mrs. Fibonacci, suggests that “you can think of almost everything as a math problem.” When the boy wakes up the next morning, math is all around him. It’s in his morning routine, it’s at lunch, it’s in social studies, English, and P.E. classes. The boy just can’t escape the math curse!

There are references to math concepts that students won’t learn until middle school or high school but they’re subtle. For instance, though the math teacher’s name is Mrs. Fibonacci, it doesn’t matter that a third grader wouldn’t know what the Fibonacci Sequence is. I think this would be a great book to read to upper-elementary-level math students on the first day of class.

There is another book in this series, Science Verse, that I do not recommend for young students. Unlike Math Curse, when reading Science Verse it is important to understand the upper-level science concepts to find enjoyment in the book. If you read Science Verse to elementary school students, you would have to spend a lot of time explaining ideas.


Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

56140 / 60000 words. 94% done!
One more day to go!

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