Blog 3: Mathematics in a story
Book: Grapes of Math (addresses asymmetries)
Author: Greg Tang
1. I picked one children’s math book “Grapes of Math”, and the author of
this book is Greg Tang. This book was divided into 16 chapters. The whole book
is talking about how to calculate and think more creatively. For example, There
is a chapter called “snail parade”, is that picture, there are five lines of
snails, two of these lines has 5 snails and the other three lines has four
snails. The author’s main purpose here is that he need us to calculate the
total number of snail quickly. We can multiple 5*5=25, and then minus 3 missing
snails, finally we got the number of 22. This way is much easier than count
every snails in this picture. Each chapter in this book is independent; it is
not a continuous story. Every picture require readers to solve the number
problem with mathematical solutions, for example, looking from different
aspects of the picture.
2. After reading this book, there is one chapter “Large Pizza to go!”
which is related to symmetry. This chapter requires us to calculate quickly how
many mushrooms are on the pizza, since the pizza is symmetrical, each side has
4 pizzas with 3 mushrooms on each top, we can just add half pizzas with
mushrooms and double it. For example: 4*3*2=24. So, the total mushrooms’ number
is 24. This picture can address the math problem of symmetry, to be more
specific, imagine there is a math graph, the pizza was divided equally by the y
axis, so each half of the pizza was the same, and one half is the reflecting of
the other half. This book uses a creativity way of addressing the main points
of symmetry of y-Axis.
3. There are many advantages of using children’s literature to learn a
mathematical concept. The first reason is that literature can make people
interested in learning mathematics. And then it provides math concepts through
literature readings, which let people understand the math problem more easily.
In addition, it also develops our conscious of math in daily life, and let
learning math became more enjoyable. At the end, combine math ideas with
literature contexts can leave a strong impress on people’s mind, and they will
remember the math ideas for a long time.
Good post! I like the second part of your post where you go in specifically to one chapter, that is good detail
ReplyDeletefish,
ReplyDeleteyou chose one of my favorite children's books to teach math! nice job of summarizing the story. i definitely like how you explained in great detail a specific section in the book, AND how you related it to concepts from our class by noting y axis symmetry! nice job of thinking outside of the box!
other than a few grammatical errors, you did a great job on this post.
professor little