Summary:
In the inspirational story, A King’s Chessman, written by David Birch and beautifully
illustrated by Devis Grebu, a wise man is given a tremendous gift for his
service to the king. The wise man is at first reluctant to asking for any
rewards for his service but is soon demanded by the king to make a request for
a reward. This leads him to notice a chessboard in the room. The wise man makes
the request that for the next 64 days he receive a grain of rice for each
square on the chessboard amounting to double the amount on the square before
that, beginning at one. Not wanting to hesitate, the king thought very little
of how much rice he would really be giving away to the wise man at the end of
the total 64 days. After the thirty-second day the king was becoming aware of
how much rice he was giving away after he saw 16 wagons being delivered to the
wise man. The king then filled with rage called upon the wise man to explain
that his royal mathematicians had calculated that the king would eventually be
giving the wise man 549,755,830,887 tons of rice. The wise man then explains
to the king that he had been happy with just giving the king a service. The
king now understands that he should not have forced a reward on the wise man
and is happy yet again with another service given to him by the man.
Mathematical Concept:
In the tale, the wise man demonstrates how the reward of
rice is an example of exponential growth. There is an extreme growth rate when
receiving twice the amount of rice as the wise man received on the previous
chess square for 64 days. Eventually the deliverer’s could no longer count
individual grains of rice, but they had to count in tons leading to the 16
wagons of rice on the thirty-second day. This exponential growth can be
explained by using the formula 2^x when x is greater than 0.
Effective Way to Teach/Learn:
The use of mathematical concepts in a children’s book is a
clever way to keep younger students involved in the lesson and the addition of
a storyline maintains curiosity about the characters while also introducing
numbers and math problems. This is also a good way for students to realize that
they will use math in everyday situations leading them to want to learn more
about math and concepts.
nice choice, i picked this book too :-)) i loved the illustrations!
ReplyDeleteIt seems like this book is similar to One Grain of Rice! I liked your explanation about students using math in everyday situations.
ReplyDeleteI agree that math in children's books is clever -- it's like they are learning math concepts without even knowing it. And great summary of the story!
ReplyDeleteblake,
ReplyDeletethe king's chessboard is a great selection, and beautifully illustrated, as carolyn highlighted in her comment. you did a great job of explaining the tale and also of giving a detailed example of the concept addressed in this book. the only tiny error in your explanation of the exponential function is that you mentioned that the restriction is when x is greater than zero. it is actually when x is greater than or equal to zero for this story. if x is strictly greater than zero, then we could not start at "one" because 2^0 =1. other than that, great!
i like what you said about children's books being a clever way to keep younger students involved, but they also have the ability to keep individuals of all ages engaged in a mathematical topic.
professor little