Number Sense and Nonsense: Building Math Creativity and Confidence Through Number Play - Softcover

Zaslavsky, Claudia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1556523785 ISBN 13: 9781556523786

Publisher: Chicago Review Press, 2001

Synopsis

These 80-plus math activities and number games help kids to think critically about math instead of just memorizing rules. The emphasis is on the underlying relationships between numbers and the process of manipulating them. Kids get together and play games with odd and even numbers, prime and composite numbers, factors, divisors, and multiples of numbers, common and decimal fractions. Children learn the history of numbers—finger counting, number symbols in various cultures, and different ways of calculating. The book is full of riddles, puzzles, number tricks, and calculator games. Kids develop skills in estimation and computation as they become familiar with the characteristics and behavior of numbers. They will gain math confidence and be ready to take chances, find their own errors, and challenge their peers.

About this title

About the Author

Claudia Zaslavsky is the author of Math Games and Activities from Around the World and The Multicultural Math Classroom. She lives in New York City.

Reviews

Grade 3-6-Zaslavsky offers an innovative approach to teaching the properties and relationships of numbers and their relevance in the everyday world. Each chapter presents scenarios of children grappling with different concepts. The first section encourages youngsters to experiment, looking for patterns and using "number sense" to determine whether or not solutions are feasible. Next, the author explains prime numbers and divisibility rules. Chapter three deals with the role and properties of zero and with place value, while the fourth delves into math in daily life, focusing on money and measurement. Other chapters are devoted to puzzles and games and provide an overview of counting in ancient cultures. Rather than emphasizing rote memorization, the examples and challenges promote creativity and empower children. Two excellent annotated reading lists, one primarily for upper-elementary-school children and one for adults, are appended. Simple black-and-white cartoons and diagrams illustrate the principles and concepts. Though motivated students will enjoy reading the book and tackling the problems on their own, more reluctant youngsters will benefit from whole-class discussions or one-on-one tutorials for optimum comprehension.
Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Number Sense and Nonsense

Building Math Creativity and Confidence Through Number Play

By Claudia Zaslavsky

Chicago Review Press Incorporated

Copyright © 2001 Claudia Zaslavsky
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-55652-378-6

Contents

Acknowledgments, 
Introduction, 
A Note to the Reader, 
A Note to Parents and Teachers, 
1 Odds and Evens, 
When Is an Even Number Odd?, 
When Is an Odd Number Even?, 
The Dating Problem, 
Number Sense About Odds and Evens, 
Puzzles About Odd and Even Number, 
Multiplication by Doubling: The Ancient Egyptian Way, 
2 Prime and Not Prime, 
Number Rectangles, 
Prime and Composite Numbers, 
All About Numbers, 
What's Odd About Adding Odd Numbers?, 
Hunt for Primes, 
Those Even Numbers, 
Factors of a Number, 
Casting Out Nines, 
Your Fingers as a Calculator, 
3 Zero — Is It Something? Is It Nothing?, 
That Funny Number, 
When Is Zero Something?, 
Make Your Own Odometer, 
The Many Uses of Zero, 
Is 0 a Number or a Letter?, 
The Missing Year, 
Who Wrote the First Zero?, 
Zero Is a Special Number, 
What Is a Googol?, 
4 Money, Measures, and Other Matters, 
Choose the Better Deal, 
Sharing the Apples, 
Making Sense of the Cents, 
Count the Change, 
A Head for Numbers, 
Tom Fuller, the African Calculator, 
The Missing Dot, 
Number Sense and Common Sense, 
Whose Foot?, 
An Expensive Mistake, 
5 Riddles, Puzzles, and Other Mind Bogglers, 
Which Is Bigger?, 
Keisha's Collection, 
Guess My Number, 
Liberian Stone Game, 
Guess the Digit, 
Guess Two Digits, 
A Calendar Trick, 
Calendar Magic Square, 
The Monkey's Age, 
6 Counting — Fingers, Words, Sticks, Strings, and Symbols, 
Notches on a Bone, 
How Many Fingers?, 
Names for Numbers: Base Ten, 
Names for Numbers: Base Twenty, 
Our Indo-Arabic Numerals, 
Numbers in Stone in Ancient Egypt, 
Chinese Stick Numerals, 
The Chinese Abacus, 
Roman Numerals: Old and New, 
The Inca Quipu: Knots on a String, 
The Bars and Dots of the Maya, 
7 The Calculator and Number Sense, 
A New Kind of Number, 
Calculator Games for Two or More, 
More Calculator Games, 
What Comes First?, 
A Number Trick, 
Number Patterns, 
Different Names for the Same Number, 
Making Sense of Cents, 
Cents and Fractions, 
Going in Circles, 
Our Base-10 System of Numbers, 
8 Numbers Grow, and Grow, and Grow, 
Hanukkah Candles, 
The Twelve Days of Christmas, 
Young Gauss, the Math Genius, 
Multiply by Dividing, 
More Bugs, 
Bugs Multiply Even Faster, 
How Many Ancestors?, 
The King's Chessboard, 
Double the Allowance, 
Going to St. Ives, 
Pennies Grow to Save Lives, 
Answers to Selected Questions, 
Bibliography, 
Books for Kids, 
Books for Adults, 
Other Resources, 
Index, 
For Teachers: Alignment with the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 2000 Standards, 

CHAPTER 1

Odds and Evens

What This Chapter Is About

All whole numbers are divided into two groups — odd numbers and even numbers. They follow one another in order — odd, even, odd, even, like the page numbers in this book. But sometimes an even number can be odd, and an odd number can be even. You will read about it in this chapter.

Knowing how numbers behave can give a big boost to your number s

Edition details

• Publisher: Chicago Review Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1556523785
• ISBN 13: 9781556523786
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160