Angela DeLaCruz- EDE 715- Math Curse

BookTitle: Math Curse

Name/Posted by: Angela DeLaCruz

Author: Jon Scieszka

Illustrated by: Lane Smith 

Publisher: Published in 1995 through Viking Press, a Division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

Summary

The young student, begins this journey on Monday when her teacher Mrs. Fibonacci tells her "you know, almost everything in life can be considered a math problem." The next day, she finds that those words start to hunt her, now she see everything is connected to Math. The girl  begins by calculating  one thing after the other; the time she wakes up, the minutes to get ready, is there enough time to catch the bus? Once on the bus stop, she wonders the number of students already on the bus how many more will get in the next stop and so on calculating everything around her for the entire day. The girl feels like she has a “Math Curse.” She cant stop thinking that everything transforms into a Math problem/equation and she feels she is going insane. Finally, at the end of the day she collapses on of the bed, only to have a nightmare. In this horrible dream she is trapped in a blackboard-room covered with math equations; and her only way out to solve the Math problems, and so she does. The girl wakes up the next morning with the ability to solve any Math problem. Her Math curse is finally broken, or so she believes, until her science teacher Mr. Newton talks about that in life, everything can be seen as a science experiment.

Rating  

I give this book a rating of 5/5, this book bridges the gaps between literacy and Math. Beautifully illustrated, a lot of intricate details which helps to captivate your imagination taking you along into the journey.  Plenty of examples of how the world is full with Mathematical problems, relatable to children and adults alike.  I found myself wondering after reading this book on how real the situations truly are. We all think of Mathematics when it comes to the classroom and counting money; but the reality is that Math is everywhere around us and we all use more than we will like to believe in our everyday lives. A thoughtful  addition, is  that the solutions to every problem are included in the back cover of the book.The book has received a number of awards, including Maine's Student Favorite Book Award, the Texas Bluebonnet Award, and New Hampshire's The Great Stone Face Book Award. This book was also adapted into a play for stage by Heath Corson and Kathleen Collins in 1997, performed at the A Red Orchid Theatre in Chicago, Illinois the same year. The play received good reviews pleasing both audiences as well as fans of the book.

Recommended Grade Level: Kindergarten to Third Graders.  (The book can be read to all included in the recommendations, but it best to utilize one page at the time during lessons.) When it comes to planning the lesson other factors come into play, considering  Math difficulty levels and proficiency. It’s important like with any lesson to tailor it specifically to the students when selecting the pages of the book to focus on and/or to use for the lesson, being careful to not overwhelm them with a lot of information, this is best accomplish by using specific pages at the time.

Classroom Activity Ideas

   

A great activity for younger students can be having the students experience the book themselves by writing numbers they encounter in their lives,  write down the numbers that have a special meaning to them and describe why those numbers are important to them. Another way is having them describe their life in number like how many people in your family, I found these great examples from a teacher Beth Ebberson -Math Project (Math about me, and My Life in Numbers! who posted some of her students assignments.   

Common Core State Standards for Math

Grade 1 » Operations & Algebraic Thinking

Represent and solve problems involving addition and subtraction.

CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.OA.A.1

Use addition and subtraction within 20 to solve word problems involving situations of adding to, taking from, putting together, taking apart, and comparing, with unknowns in all positions, e.g., by using objects, drawings, and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice

CCSS Math Practice MP1

Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. 

Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution. They analyze givens, constraints, relationships, and goals. They make conjectures about the form and meaning of the solution and plan a solution pathway rather than simply jumping into a solution attempt. They consider analogous problems, and try special cases and simpler forms of the original problem in order to gain insight into its solution. They monitor and evaluate their progress and change course if necessary.

CCSS Math Practice 

MP4 Model with mathematics.  

Mathematically proficient students can apply the mathematics they know to solve problems arising in everyday life, society, and the workplace. In early grades, this might be as simple as writing an addition equation to describe a situation.