Math and Literature Ideas
Posted by Cindy on February 22, 2008
I’m trying to keep up with my promise to show you what some of our unconventional math lessons look like around here. Today I want to share how I plan a math lesson around a piece of literature. It’s really very easy!
Like most everything I do, I grab a pencil and a pad of paper before I do anything else because I’m always writing notes. If I don’t write something down as it pops in my head, it’s usually gone – never to return again!
So with pen and paper in hand, I grab a math book and quickly read through it. I jot down math concepts and activity ideas that jump out at me. The more you do it, the easier ideas start jumping out at you, I promise. Sometimes, I’ll only write a couple of ideas – which means one day’s worth of lessons is all we’ll do before that book goes back on the shelf (or back to the library.) If a lot of ideas are written, I might plan a few days worth of lessons around the book.
If NOTHING pops out at me, but I really like the book, I’ll do one of two things:
1. We’ll just read the book together for fun – no math strings attached.
2. I’ll do a quick google search to see if any good lessons are floating around in cyberspace just waiting for me to grab.
This week we read Sir Cumference and the Isle of Immeter. I found a worksheet in my geometry folder that sent Mahayla on a hunt through the house measuring the perimeter, area and volume of various objects.
Caleb and I pulled out the one-inch tiles and measured the perimeter and area of things around the school room. After a while, he tried his hand at measuring the length and width of the objects with the tiles, then multiplying the numbers to find the area. Finally, he had to use a ruler to find the perimeter and area of many things.
Not only did this simple little lesson create excitement, but it allowed the kids to practice measurement, perimeter, area, volume, mental addition & multiplication and more complex math formulas such as 2l + 2w=p, l x w=a and l x w x h=v. I could’ve done the same sort of teaching from the textbook, but I’m rather sure this lesson will stick a little better!
A couple weeks ago, I forced gave the moms at co-op the opportunity to try their hands at this process and they were VERY GOOD at it!! Here is a great list of math ideas they came up with on many various math titles. The activities are in no particular order – some will be appropriate for little ones, while others will be appropriate for jr. high. I just asked the moms to pick a book and try to think of ideas that would be good for their own children.
The cute math clip art came from Philip Martin.
