1. I picked Grapes in Math as my picture book. This book consists of many interesting math stories. Each of them has a a picture and several lines of interpretations and hint to help your solve the problem. For example, there is a story called "ant attack". A group of ants are crossing the grassland and they see the picnic and scream, Now these ants on the ground form a unique geometry shape that looks like a square. The question for you to solve is to tell the total number of these ants without count them one by one. Another example is about fan. This is a colorful fan that has a combination of purple, red, green, yellow, blue and so on. Each fan leaf has a different color, Overall it looks like a Chinese traditional fan and become popular worldwide. When summer comes, ladies will hold fans like this and bring themselves breeze. This one asks you to count dots on the fan using a different route.
2. This book utilizes principles like symmetry, number combination and grouping, multiplication and so on. In the "Ant Attack" story, you find a square and calculate how many ants are in the square. There are 4 ants on each side of the square, so 4 x 4 = 16. Then you just add the 3 ants that are left behind, 16+3=19. So there are 19 ants in total. We are be able to solve this problem so easily is because the symmetry of the square. We know that each side of the square has equal number of ants so we just multiply them. In the "It's a Breeze" story, the fan is a symmetry shape, so we know both sides of the fan have equal amount of dots. 5 x 3 =15. There are 15 dots on the fan.
3. These stories are interesting for kids to learn. Learning through pictures is helpful for people who have difficulties with abstraction and dimension, especially for young kids who are still developing their right brain. And these interesting lines on the right side of the picture are well phrased like poems. Hints in the bottom offers a chance for kids to brainstorming a while and think about a different route to solve the problem.
Ben,
ReplyDeleteI think that you did a nice job at explaining what the book was about and how it related to what we are studying. I also liked you reasoning for why math in literature is important. Great job!
Tyler R.
The description of the content of the book is really good and I like how you used numerical examples to explain the concepts taught. The fact it had "brainstorming" opportunities was interesting to, as it encourages individual thought.
ReplyDeleteben,
ReplyDeletei love the grapes of math! it is in my children's book collection. you did a very nice job of giving a synopsis of this book. i like that you focused on giving examples of symmetry to explain some of the mathematical concepts in this story. your final paragraph is great, especially what you say about children's right brains. also, i like that you address that literature is helpful for all people, not just children. good job.
professor little