Blog Post 3

Once you have selected a book, read the book and write a synopsis (summary) of the book.  Be sure to include the title of the book and the author and give a summary of the proper sequencing in the story.

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin is written by Margaret McNamara and illustrated by G. Brian Karas and tells a story about a boy named Charlie, who is the smallest kid in his class. One day Charlie walks into his class and finds three pumpkins on his teacher’s, Mr. Tiffin’s, desk. There is one large pumpkin, one medium pumpkin, and one small pumpkin. Mr. Tiffin asks the class “How many seeds in a pumpkin?” Different students estimate how many seeds each pumpkin has; they guess that the largest pumpkin has the most and the smallest pumpkin has the least amount of seeds. Mr. Tiffin suggests that they open up the pumpkins to count the seeds. The next day at school Mr. Tiffin opens up the pumpkins and the kids break into groups to pull all the seeds out of each pumpkin. Mr. Tiffin asks the kids to think about how they should count all the seeds, and ultimately the class decides to count them by twos, fives, and tens. “The Twos Club” will count all the seeds from the large pumpkin by twos, “The Fives Club” will count all the seeds from the medium pumpkin by fives, and lastly, Charlie will count the seeds from the small pumpkin by tens. “The Twos Club” had 170 pairs of seeds, “The Fives Club” had 63 groups of five seeds with one left over, and lastly Charlie finds that the smallest pumpkin had 35 groups of 10 seeds. The kids use multiplication to find the total number of seeds for each pumpkin, so 2 x 170 = 340 seeds, 5 x 63 = 316, and 10 x 35 = 350. This means that the smallest pumpkin had the most number of seeds; all the students were surprised, especially Charlie. Mr. Tiffin reminds the children that “you can never tell how many seeds are in a pumpkin until you open it up” and asks them to make observations about each pumpkin. They observe that the smallest pumpkin is the darkest orange and has the most lines on the outside. Mr. Tiffin tells them that each of those observations is an indicator as to how old the pumpkin is, and the older the pumpkin, the more seeds it will have. At the end of the day Charlie concludes that, “small things can have a lot going on inside them.” The End.

After reading and summarizing the book, explain in detail the mathematical concept presented in the book. 

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin uses a handful of mathematical concepts: making estimations, adding, multiplying, skip counting etc. However, the one that most applies to what we’ve been doing in class is repeated sums and repeated products. Repeated sums are the same as a product, which is evident in the way that the students chose to count the seeds: 2 times x would be 2x, or 5 times x would be 5x, and ten times x would be 10x. We used this same concept in class to draw the distinction between linear functions (y = mx+b) and exponential functions (f(x) = ab^x). In a linear function, m is added an x number of times: m+m+m+m…, which is the way the students were adding the seeds: 10+10+10+10…+10 over and over 35 times (=350). This is different from an exponential function because an exponential function would have 10x10x10x10… with 10 being multiplied times itself 35 times (=1E35). This story underscores that the concept of addition is the foundation of multiplication, and it relates to our class because we have also made the distinction that multiplication is at the foundation of exponents.


Explain in your own words why you believe literature is an effective way to teach/learn a mathematical concept.

I borrowed this book from my little cousin, who is now in her first year of school in kindergarten. She got the book for her birthday from one of her relatives that thought it would be a good introduction to math. I’d imagine learning math for the first time could probably be a little boring at times and daunting for a young child. I am 21 now and I still find it to be daunting and boring, but I thought this book was a fun way to learn some of the basic concepts without realizing they’re listening to a math lesson. It is also a fun activity one could repeat with their child at home around Halloween, so that carving a pumpkin could also help them practice their math skills. Sometimes it helps to learn math in a different context than a textbook, the story book was definitely less intimidated and allows children to develop the concepts by applying them to a real life experience they have every year at Halloween.