Math For All Seasons: Mind-Stretching Math Riddles

Grades 1-3--Another calculated success from the creators of Grapes of Math (Scholastic, 2001). Each spread features a crisp, bright illustration with a rhymed couplet that poses a counting task and gives a suggested strategy. The 16 riddles take readers through the seasons beginning with tulips and hatching chicks in springtime and ending with snowflakes and gift boxes in winter. This ambitious work encourages creative problem solving in several ways. Youngsters learn to pair or group items to make adding easier, subtract to add (such as two 5s are 10 minus 2 equals 8), and to look for patterns and symmetries that provide further shortcuts to addition. Since most children are inclined to count items one by one, Tang's book will present them with a new tactic: recognizing visual groupings (twos, threes, and fives) to make adding faster and more accurate, and provide them with some training in it. Another plus is that the strategies learned early in the book are used more than once, thereby reinforcing the skills. Solutions are illustrated and explained at the back of the book. Though only one is offered for each scenario, it is possible that readers might find alternate, yet equally valid groupings. Math's appealing computer artwork, poetry, holiday and seasonal themes, and challenges add up to a winning combination.
Barbara Auerbach, New York City Public Schools
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Move over, worksheets and pencils! The team behind The Grapes of Math once again proves that posing number problems through verse and vivid pictures is a powerful path to math learning. With titles like "Raining Cats and Frogs" and "Amazing Grain," the poems span the seasons, encouraging readers to look for patterns and symmetry in the playful illustrations. Each poem poses a "how many" question about the accompanying picture of seasonal items, from acorns and hatching chicks to dandelions and icicles. Several creatively convey facts about their timely topics, as in "Not-So-Dandy Lions": "These lions are a stubborn breed-- / There's never just a single weed./ The trouble starts when they get loose,/ They catch a breeze and reproduce!" the simple verse then hints at effective strategies to make counting faster and easier. With 10 dandelions pictured on the opposing page, Tang poses the question "How many plants are still in bloom?" then suggests: "Count by fives the plants you see,/ Then subtract the seedy three!" Briggs sprinkles his computer-generated artwork with fun-loving graphics throughout. Summer-themed poems show a pigeon wearing swim goggles diving into a bird bath and a lemonade-drinking butterfly. Any time of year is a good time to delve into these pictorial puzzles. Ages 7-10.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 6-8. From flashing fireworks and blowing leaves to multiple scoops of ice cream, a bright, clear, computer-generated illustration sets the scene in each double-page spread, and a playful rhyme asks a counting question about the picture ("Can you count up all the scoops?" "Just how many leaves are there?"). With each riddle, there's also a clue to the math ("Try counting in groups of two"), and the answers at the back not only give the correct number but also show how to get the answer faster than by counting one by one. As they look at the pictures with an adult, children will enjoy learning the quick tricks of arithmetic, especially multiplication ("if it's symmetrical, count one and double it") and discovering the sets and patterns, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal, in the world around them. This is math, not by rote but in the things children do. Hazel Rochman
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