Blog Post #3

Book Title - Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There is?
By - Robert E. Wells

1. The book Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There is? takes the reader in a journey through the idea of size and area. Wells starts off talking about the size of a Blue Whale's fluke and how it is bigger than most animals such as an elephant of giraffe. Through the illustrations he shows the size of the whale when compared to the animals. Then he talks about what if we put 100 whales in a really big jar, and then stacked the jars on top of each other. Then he talks about the jars or whales being compared to Mt. Everest and how small they are in comparison. Then he stacks 100 Mt Everest on top of each other and says that it "would be a mere whisker on the face of the earth". He continues this pattern by talking about bags filled with earths, compared to the sun and then crates of suns compared to the star Antares, then Antares to our Galaxy, then our Galaxy compared to the Universe.

2. The mathematical concept explained in the book is the idea of exponential functions or growth. Each item he talks about is a certain number of times larger than the proceeding object. For example the sun is x times larger than the earth and the earth is y times larger than the whales. If one wanted to find the exponential function or growth they could find the size of the earth and have it divided by the size of the sun and the answer would give the number of times larger the sun is than the earth. Thus the growth factor between the two.

3. Literature is an effective way to teach mathematical concepts because it uses more concrete things to show the math that is being preformed. It is perhaps easier for children to understand that something is 2x larger than something else when comparing it to another object, rather than using just number. Overall it is effective because it applies the ideas of familiar objects and alters those objects using math, and it shows more clear changes.

Blog Post #3

1. Bigger, Better, Best! By Stuart J. Murphy tells the story of three young siblings, Jenny Jeff and Jill who constantly argue over who has the nicest room, belongings etc. Shortly after their family moves into their new home, each child makes the claim that they have the best and biggest room out of the three. After much argument and dispute, no one can decide who's room is superior. Finally, with the introduction of the mathematical concept of "Area", the trio determines whose room is largest and consequently better.

2. In Bigger, Better, Best! the mathematical concept of area is used to determine which child has the largest and overall superior room. In the book, each child measures their room's floor space by placing sheets of paper along the perimeter of two adjacent walls then counting up the number of sheets along each wall. Since the children's rooms are square, they find the area of their rooms by multiplying the number of sheets on each wall to determine the area, and size of the room itself. After comparing room area's, the siblings thus learn who's room is larger and thus superior.

3. I believe that literature is an effect way of teaching mathematical concepts because remembering short and simple stories is often easier to remember than complicated math lessons. Also, using literature in math enhances math concepts understandability in that it provides students with easy to use and memorable examples. And everyone could agree that making math easier is a good thing!

Blog Post #3

THE NUMBER DEVIL

1) The Number Devil is a children’s novel written by Hans Magnus Enzenberger. The Number Devil is about a young boy by the name of Robert who suffers from mathematical anxiety due to endless amounts of boredom in class. Robert experiences a continuous dream that involves falling down a slide that results in getting eaten by a huge fish. Throughout the novel Robert is visited 12 times by the number devil teaching him a new math technique each night. For example, Robert learns about infinite number, negative numbers, prime numbers, natural numbers, exponential numbers, irrational numbers and last but not least infinite numbers. After the 12^th dream, Robert no longer suffers from mathematical anxiety and is able to interpret what he learned from the math devil in class. 

2) On the second night that the devil visits Robert, he teaches him the math concept of exponential numbers through hopping numbers because they hop from themselves to another multiple. Such as 2^2= 4, then 2^3=8, the number hops from 4 directly to the number 8, when only the exponent is increased by 1.  

3) I think literature is an effective way to teach math because literature is read very closely with attention to detail. So if mathematical concepts are being used within literature, people can easily identify the concept and analyze it to the point where they understand it and how it relates to the text. It can effectively teach young children and young men concepts that are not entirely understood, or even completely teach a new concept to a young child or young man. 

Blog Post #3

THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR

1) The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a children’s book written by Eric Carle. The story begins at night with a little egg on a leaf, which then evolves one Sunday morning into a very small and hungry caterpillar. He began looking for some food because he was hungry. On Monday morning he ate through 1 apple, but was still hungry. On Tuesday he ate through 2 pears but was still hungry. On Wednesday he ate through 3 plums but he was still hungry. On Thursday he ate through 4 strawberries but he was still hungry. On Friday he ate through 5 oranges, but he was still hungry. On Saturday he ate through many things and then had a stomach ache. Then came Sunday, he ate through a nice green leaf and then felt much better. After that he wasn’t hungry anymore nor was he small, he was large and built a cocoon and two weeks later evolved into a butterfly.

2) The Very Hungry Caterpillar demonstrates constant rate of change. The caterpillar, as the days of the week go by, increases his consumption by a factor of 1 each following day. In other words, Monday he consumes 1, Tuesday 2, Wednesday 3, Thursday 4 and Friday 5. Up until Friday the book demonstrates a constant rate of change of 1. After Friday I could say that the book also partially demonstrates exponential growth because on Saturday he eats about 10 things, meaning from one day to the next he increases his consumption by a factor of 5, not 1. This book does a well job of showing a constant rate of change, then a little bit of exponential growth, to an extent.

3) I believe literature is an effective way to teach a mathematical concept because it demonstrates mathematical concepts primarily in very simple and understandable ways, such as the numerous amounts of children books. It can easily teach young children how to count, as well as older children and young men to better understand concepts that are taught in the classroom.  

Blog Post #3 - The Number Devil - Paul Hernandez

The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure is written by Hans Magnus Enzensberger and illustrated by Rotraut Susanne Berner. The Number devil is about a boy named Robert who is afraid to do math on his own. Robert tends to dream a lot ,and he is visited by the number devil in his dreams. Throughout the story the number devil teaches him many math terms such as prime numbers, negative numbers, natural numbers, irrational numbers, infinite numbers, and exponentiation. The number devil starts with explaining the number one to robert and gradually explores more concepts as each dream happens. Robert experiences twelve dreams where the number devil teaches him a new math skill in each dream. The number devil uses examples such as Robert's classmates to introduce mathematical concepts. It is later introduced that the name of the Devil is Teplotaxl. By the end of all twelve dreams, Robert is not longer afraid to tackle math on his own and is able to use his math knowledge and experience in class.

In the first chapter, the number devil explains the number one and how if you keep on adding ones together they will eventually make bigger numbers. He later tells Robert to multiply 1 x 1 = 1, then 11 x 11 = 121, then 111 x 111 = 12,231. This is an example of exponential growth .because the larger the numbers would create a larger outcome

I think literature is an effective way to learn mathematical concepts ,because it brings perspective to math. For example, if I were to use a story about candy to explain basic multiplication or addition it creates a world that can be visualized in order for it to relate to a student or young child. Literature can also relate math to real world applications ,so they can show their actual importance instead of just relating to math and that's it.

Grapes of Math

1) In the children s math story, Grapes of Wrath, the author takes us to many different places where you need to count quickly. to do this you need to look at the symmetry of the objects in question to see if you can find the pattern and count quickly. When you reach the end of the story you get to learn all the ways to see the symmetry and patterns in the pictures.

2) The primary concept of the book Grapes of Math, is finding symmetry to be able to make quick calculations. For example, in a perfect diamond shaped school of fish, it's easy to quickly assess that there were 4 lines of 4 fish. instead of counting each fish you can just count 4+4+4+4=16 

3)  Literature is an excellent way to teach and learn a mathematical concept because it gives a person a different outlook on the concept. In the case of children's books, the concepts are not only expressed literally but also visually in a creative way. 

Blog post #3

Blogpost #3

Ana Maria Lopez

Topic: Exponential functions

Book title:  The Kings chessboard

Author: David Birch and Illustrator: Devis Grebu

1.          Summary: In a far away land, the amazing King of India orders to his kingdom that the wise man should be rewarded for his useful services. The wise man strongly insists that he is just rewarded with just having the honor to serve the king. Yet, this was not enough for this king. After insisting, the wise man says: “Tomorrow, for the first square of your chessboard, give me one grain of rice; the next day, for the second square, two grains of rice; the next day after that, four grains of rice; then, the following day, eight grains for the next square of your chessboard. Thus for each square give me twice the number of grains for the square before it, and so on for every square of the chessboard”. Not knowing the real trick the King agrees. The wise man begins to receive large amount of bags of rice. At the end, they both end agreeing to end the rice deal but yet the wise man continued to serve the king.

2.         The mathematical concept presented in this story is the exponential function. In this case, the chessboard has 64 squares; in this case it would be 64 days. In this case, as the wise man descried, he received 1 grain on day 1, 2 grains on day 2, 4 grains on day 3, 8 days on day 4, 16 grains on day 5, 32 on day 6 and so on. In this case, the number of rice grains doubled every day for 64 days. At the beginning, it might have seemed, to the king and to many others who read the story, that the number of grans of rice was small. But as the numbers became bigger and they kept doubling the number of grains of rice, the amount of rice became really big. This situation can be modeled by the function 2^n.

3.          In this case, the use of a simple pictures and a very straightforward plot, facilitates the understanding of the exponential function. In this case, the author does a really effective job on, very clearly and basically (with simple rice grains), explaining such a complex topic. In this case, this situation of “ the King’s Chessboard” illustrates the effect of doubling. Additionally, when applying a mathematical concept to a real life situation, students in general can understand the concept even better.