Math Book Suggestions

Here, as promised, is a list of the math books that were recommended by blog readers as part of the book giveaway to celebrate Pi Day.  In addition to Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese, they were:

Why Pi? by Johnny Ball

We also like The Rabbit Problem, by Emily Gravett (and a lot of rabbits), and The Wright 3, by Blue Balliett, both of which deal with the Fibonacci sequence.


Another great math story is One Grain of Rice: A Mathematical Folktale by Demi. I use this artfully illustrated story to introduce exponential notation as well as the power of MATHEMATICS.


Everyone of all ages in my house still spends time with City by Numbers, by Stephen T. Johnson, even though we're all long past numeral recognition. It's a beautiful book.


I like You Can Count on Monsters, Quack and Count, all of Anno's books, How Hungry Are You?, The Cat in Numberland, Powers of Ten, and a bunch of not-picture-books I posted about here.


My favorite children's math book is Kathryn Lasky's "The Librarian who measured the earth."
It motivated me to develop the Noon Day project at CIESE/Stevens:  http://ciese.org/noonday


Thanks to all for the recommendations.  I'm sure they are all great resources for shaking up our math instruction and addressing some subjects through literature instead of traditional workbooks.

Pi Day Celebrations

Man, yesterday was a red letter day here with all the interdisciplinary math we had going on during Pi Day 2011!  In the morning, my son and I worked with Maria Droujkova of Natural Math on a one-page book showing division of fractions that I am writing and my son is illustrating (both of us with Maria's wise counsel, of course).

In the afternoon, we did some of our other work, but then we kicked off the evening with our traditional (well, at least we've done it for the past couple of years since Maria has introduced us to Pi Day) Pi Day dinner of Pizza Pi(e)s.  Each one of us had our own pies with varying degrees of pi-ness.

My husband's pizza was pretty typical, with pi mostly being represented by rounds of sausage:

Mine was more of a celebration of circles.  I began with a circle of ricotta cheese (an idea I took from a recent Cooking Light magazine), then a circle of organic basil, then a circle of feta cheese, then another circle of basil.

I then layered that with circles of onion, then layered tri-circles red and green pepper on top of that.

My son had the most Pi pie, though.  He cut his pepperoni and mushrooms into the shape of pi.

It was a fun and delicious way to mark Pi Day.

Then, after dinner, we had a wonderful discussion with author Joe D'Agnese about ways to use his book Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci in exposing students to a variety of math ideas, but also in relating math to both history and real life.  Thanks to those who joined us for the talk.  If you missed it (or want to review it), you can access the recording of the discussion through this link.

Finally, after midnight, we had the Random.org number generator pick for the winner of the Blockhead book giveaway.  The lucky winner is Ann Murphy!  Ann, please email me at ccross@mindspring.com and let me know what dedication you would like on your autographed book (if any) and the address to which to send it.  It is kind of fitting that Ann won, because she got an extra five entries because she posted the information about the contest and webinar through her social network.  So I kind of like the fact that someone with a statistic advantage actually won the Pi Day giveway--although, as I said, I left it up to the random number generator to pick the winning number.

Congratulations to Ann--let us know how you use the book once you get it.  And I will be posting the list of suggested books in a forthcoming blog post.

Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day, Everyone!

This is a special day for me, and not just because we celebrate every holiday we can at our house.  This blog has two special events organized for Pi Day:

1. Today is the deadline for entering to win an autographed copy of the book Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci (see this post for details on entering); and
2. Tonight at 8:00 PM US Eastern Time (GMT -5.00), we will have a webinar with the author of Blockhead to discuss how to use this excellent picture book to teach not only the Fibonacci sequence of numbers, but many other math concepts (see this post for more information).

This webinar is being offered as part of the Math 2.0 series organized by Maria Droujkova of Natural Math, who wrote up these simple instructions about how to connect to the webinar:

How to join the webinar

• Follow this link at the time of the event: http://tinyurl.com/math20event
• Monday, March 14th (Pi Day!) 2011 we will meet in the LearnCentral online room at 5:00 pm Pacific, 8:00pm Eastern time.  (Check the WorldClock for your time zone.)
• Click "OK" and "Accept" several times as your browser installs the software. When you see Elluminate Session Log-In, enter your name and click the "Login" button
• If this is your first time, come a few minutes earlier to check out the technology. The room opens half an hour before the event.

Check the blog tomorrow to see if you were the big winner, and also to access a link to hear a recording of the session if you happen to miss it.

Good luck to all, and have fun today investigating all things Pi!

March Giveaway: Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci

Another month, another book giveaway.  This month's book is in honor of a March holiday that I went for WAY too many years without celebrating until I was informed of it a couple years ago by Maria Droujkova of Natural Math.  That holiday is Pi Day, which is celebrated on March 14 in recognition of the Pi number of 3.14159265.....well, click here for the first million digits of Pi.

Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised that the book I'm giving away this month is Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese.  I love this book, as I've attested in my review on my blog; we've used it not only for math, but for a variety of subjects ranging from cooking to poetry.  As I explained on my blog post, Picture Books for Middle Schoolers, that while the book is written for an elementary school audience, I think middle schoolers--and perhaps older--can find deeper levels in the books than the younger students, making it appropriate for a wide age range of readers.  But you can make your own judgement for your children by viewing parts of the book at its own website.

However, as wonderful as the book is itself, the copy we will give away will be extra special because it will be signed by the author himself!  So you want to be sure to enter.  To become eligible for the drawing, you need to add your name to the comments below.  Although it is not a requirement, I would love you to also include in your comment the title of a math-related picture book that you and/or your family recommends.  This will allow us to create a list of other math picture books to share with readers of this blog.

You can also earn additional entries by helping me to spread the word about this contest.  So if you post an announcement about this on your blog, your Facebook page, or your Twitter account, email me at ccross@mindspring.com to let me know, and I will give you an additional five entries to the one you get by entering a comment.

To get an idea about the beautiful graphics in this book, please watch the following two-minute trailer:


Good luck to all applicatants.  The winner will be chosen after midnight on Pi Day by Random.org through a random number simulation process.  Be sure to check back here on March 15 to find out if you are the lucky winner!

UPDATE:  We have now scheduled a free webinar with the author!  Check this blog post for details.

Picture Books for Middle Schoolers

As long as I am on my "don't abandon all youthful tools" kick...

Pragmatic Mom had a thought-provoking blog post where she asked people to help compile a Top 10 list of Caldecott Medal and Honor Books.  It was tough, but I finally came up with this list based on my self-imposed rules:
--No more than one book from any one author
--Selection was more than just that one book, but also considered body of work by that author

Going in order from oldest to newest, my top 10 choices were:

Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss, pseud. [Theodor Seuss Geisel]

The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Anansi the Spider: A Tale from the Ashanti , adapted and illustrated by Gerald McDermott

The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

Tuesday by David Wiesner

Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young

In the Small, Small Pond by Denise Fleming 

What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? illustrated and written by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page

Zen Shorts illustrated and written by Jon J. Muth

And while some might think that Caldecott winners were too young for middle schoolers, I would disagree. For example, we still create Oobleck, sometime for science, sometimes just for the fun of it. I used Tuesday in a writing class (for a lesson of "show, not tell" in writing) and Seven Blind Mice in a religion class (as a metaphor for trying to explain the divine). I anticipate using Anansi the Spider when we get into Jung, and Zen Shorts when we get to Buddhism. And, of course, we once again celebrated the Christmas season with our annual reading of The Polar Express.

But it got me to thinking that maybe I would create my own Top 10 list of Non-Fiction Picture Books for Middle Schoolers, based on the resources I have been using in my classes for this academic year. So here are the Picture Books that have figured most prominently in our 6th Grade lessons so far:

Math (but really, so much more)

Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese  I wrote an entire post about this book, which we love, love, LOVE.  We used it not only for math, but for history, art, and even literature, since it has inspired us writing some short poems known as Fibs.

History (we are studying 19th Century World and American history)

Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations by Diane Stanley

The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy) by Barbara Kerley (my review of this book)

Walt Whitman:  Words For America by Barbara Kerley

History and Science  

One Beetle Too Many:  The Extraordinary Adventures of Charles Darwin by Kathryn Lasky

The Cod’s Tale by Mark Kurlansky

Science

The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay

The Way We Work by David Macaulay

These aren't really classic Picture Books, so I'm counting them both together as one book.  But they both present scientific information in such a great visual way, and work either reading sequentially through the book, or just picking up a page or two at a time to get clear about a particular question that has come up about a tool or a body part.

World Religions (so far, just Judaism and Christianity)

Creation by Gerald McDermott

Exodus by Brian Wildsmith (my review of this book)

Spirit Child:  A Story of the Nativity by John Bierhorst

I also found a couple of resources with some other good Picture Books for middle schoolers.  One is from another blog of a book-loving teacher, Planetesme, where she lists some other top notch picture book biographies.  An even more thorough and academic-oriented resource is A Middle School Teacher's Guide for Selecting Picture Books.

But I would love to get any suggestions that you have for picture books for students in the 11-14 age range.  Anyone have any other picture books to recommend to us?  Please share them in the comments below.

Book Review: Exodus by Brian Wildsmith

This week in our World Religion class, we are studying the story of Exodus, or the escape of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt, following Moses in the desert for 40 years, and eventual entry into the Promised Land.  The book we are using to tell this tale is Exodus by Brian Wildsmith.  Brian Wildsmith is a book writer and illustrator from England who is not nearly as well known as he should be, given the gorgeous work that he does (he has won the English equivalent of the Caldecott for the best children's book artwork).

The text is clear and straight-forward and condenses an article book of the Old Testament/Torah in a concise, unbiased, and easily comprehensible way.  While it can be used with elementary students, I think it is appropriate for middle schoolers as well.  But what really sets this book apart is the artwork.  The best word I can come up with to describe the illustrations is sumptuous!  Wildsmith uses rich, almost glowing colors, and even gold leaf in some pages.  His pictures are on a grand scale, capturing the grandeur of Egypt at the time of the Pharoahs and pyramids, and including depictions of hundreds or even thousands of people in the background.  He includes, but doesn't dwell on, the less savory aspects of the story (such as the plagues and the killing of the first-born), and the drawings of that section won't upset more sensitive readers.

But one of the best parts of his take on this classic tale, at least to my mind, is how he shows the more fantastic components of the tale, such as the burning bush and God leading the people of Israel as a cloud or as a flame.  I particularly like how he illustrates God in a symbolic, non-human way.

This is the kind of book that the illustrations can bring up as many discussion topics as the text.  Like the Blockhead book,  I think the wonderful art helps make it relevent to an older audience.  Those who have heard the story before can find new information and objects of interest in the pictures, and those who aren't familiar with the tale aren't likely to forget it with such beautiful illustrations to support a visual memory of whole event.

Book Review: Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese

While I was searching the picture books section of my local library for a pornographic Eric Carle book (see this blog entry for more info), I found this wonderful book:  Blockhead:  The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese.  Earlier this year, I met Joe and his partner (in writing, sometimes, but in life, always), Denise Kiernan, when they came to talk to our homeschool group about their fabulous book, Signing Their Lives Away:  The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence.  (Not to get off topic, but this is a great resource for middle schoolers who are studying the American Revolution, because it has interesting child-oriented stories about all 56 signers of the Declaration--the famous and the forgotten. )

Anyway, I knew this book was coming out from talking to Joe, and knowing the quality of his work, I expected it to be good.  And now that I've seen it, I'm happy to report that I was not disappointed.  It does a great job of presenting the Fibonacci sequence of numbers in a way that can be easily understood by elementary students.  But I think it is so well written, and the illustrations are so glorious, that I believe it is still appropriate to middle schoolers, especially those who are visual learners who have not yet learned to love the the numeric precision of mathematics.

The illustrator is John O'Brien, whom I don't know, but now would love to, because I think he did a great job.  He managed to create beautiful and modern pictures that evoke the feeling of medieval wood carvings (at least to me).  But most of all, he fills his pictures with all sorts of subtle depictions of Fibonacci numbers--Fibonacci curves and swirls, Fibonacci numbers captured in leaves, fruits, animals, and even landforms.  This is part of the reason I think the book also works for older audiences; if they are already familiar with the Fibonacci sequence, they can be engaged in searching out the patterns drawn on each page.

However, there is another message in the book.  In D'Agnese story (admittedly, a fiction based on scanty information about the real man), Fibonacci is called a "blockhead" by his contemporaries because he is so fixated by numbers--and so, doesn't see things like everyone else.  The book also provides a supportive commentary to other children who are different, telling them to follow their passions, even if their peers don't understand them.   As Fibonacci's mentor counsels him, after the child mathematician tells him that numbers are what make him happiest, "Then you should learn all you can about them.  That way you will always be happy."  What great advice that is for all of us!

My middle school son and I read it today, and at first he thought it was simple.  But when he looked at it again, he found more and more layers to the pages.  Then, when we went to spend time with my dear friend, math educator extraordinaire Miss Maria, we found ourselves searching out Fibonacci numbers in the rows of the pine cones we were throwing.

However, don't take my word for it.  See the video that Denise created for the book at the book's website.  Also, if you happen to use the book in a class or group setting, I can attest that Joe is a great speaker to students--engaging them at their level while still providing valuable content.   Even if you don't have a budget to have him come speak in person, he does Skype visits for even nominal tax-deductible contributions to Heifer Internation (a charity that I have given to personally) as part of the Fibonacci Giving Project.