Sunday, July 14, 2013

Monday Math Literature Volume 1

Hi All!

I will be starting a regular feature on my blog every Monday for the next few months.  I will be featuring math literature books!  It will be a great way to share with all of you some of my favorite books that I use when teaching math concepts.  I love including a picture book in a math lesson and kids love it too!

I am linking up with Collaboration Cuties for their math mentor text linky


This week I am featuring my favorite book that I share with my sixth grade students...

Sir Cumference And The Dragon Of Pi

This book is part of one of my favorite series written by Cindy Neuschwander.  It is a great way to introduce your students or reinforce the idea of the number Pi (which is really emphasized heavily in grade 7 in the Common Core).

In the story, Sir Cumference gets turned into a dragon.  His son Radius finds a poem about the Circle's Measure and uses it to try to turn his father back into a knight before he gets slayed by others in the kingdom.  It is a great exposure to the idea that the circumference of a circle is a little more than 3 times as big as the diameter.  It is also quite humorous and there are several funny character names and math jokes included.

Several years ago, I had a class that particularly loved this book and they begged me to let them perform it as a play.  One of the students re-wrote the book in play format and each kid took on a role and performed it during our Pi Day celebration.  It was great fun and a great connection to literacy!  Each year since, we have re-written the book as a play and performed it for parents and other staff members as part of our Pi Day celebration.  It is a great way for kids to really immerse themselves in the story while practicing their reading fluency at the same time!  It is a very memorable experience for kids and I highly recommend it.

If you want a copy of this book for your classroom, I recommend the library/school binding because it will be much loved by your students and this version is practically indestructible.

Here are some other books in this series that I will be covering in future Monday Math Literature posts!  ALL of these books are worth owning!
Sir Cumference and the First Round Table 
Sir Cumference and All the King's Tens
Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter
Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland


Here are the newest releases in the series that I ordered for this upcoming school year
Sir Cumference and the Viking's Map
Sir Cumference and the Off-the-Charts Dessert

Which book in this series is your favorite?

Want to read about more great math literature books?  Click here to head over to part 2!

7 comments:

  1. What a great idea to recreate as a play!
    I had no idea there were that many books in the series!
    Thanks for sharing.
    Fabulous Fifth Grade Fun

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    1. Hi Charlotte! I love making plays out of kids books. It makes for a very memorable experience. I love the books in this series, they are all grounded in very solid mathematical topics and they are very cute and have lots of little math jokes in them.

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    2. Thanks Charlotte! Making this into a play makes it so memorable for my students. I really get into the Pi day fun and hope kids remember it!

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  2. One of my goals this year is to incorporate more literature into math and build problem solving situations around it. I'll be looking forward to more book ideas from you!
    ❀ Tammy
    Forever in First

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    1. Thanks Tammy! I love using math literature in lessons. I have quite the collection of math literature going now and I find myself using it more and more. The more we can integrate subjects the more kids can learn in a day.

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  3. I LOVE the play idea! I really enjoy Cindy's book, it's hard to pick a favorite.
    Kids Math Teacher

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    1. I really do love all of her books but this one is my absolute favorite. Maybe because we do the play and kids get so into it.

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