Children's Math Book Review: Apollo

Have you read Apollo? While this cute little book was probably not written with the intent of teaching math concepts, I love it for it's ability to explore basic vocabulary with simplicity and humor.

Summary: The owner of a dachshund describes how adorable, obedient, and clever his dog is from all sides and all directions.

Basically, the narrator introduces you to Apollo, looking at his back, middle, front, sides, etc. The reader is exposed to the words: horizontally, vertically, diagonally, left, right, etc. My favorite pages explore the concept of "half" when the pictures show the front half of Apollo but then show "different halves" by showing his top half and bottom half. Great humor and concept exploration for preschool and early primary children. The same author also has a book, Counting With Apollo, that I've not yet seen.

Vertical Stuffed Moose

I handed our older digital camera to my 8yo son this afternoon so he could take photos of stuffed animals, exploring the vocabulary and concepts from the book.

This would also make a great preschool or primary math workbox.

Horizontal Stuffed Moose

1/2 of a Stuffed Dog

More Polygon Play! (Geometry Class #4, Fall 2010)

Time for some more polygon play...wanna play along?

I made a pdf (print it, free!) to review the terms for the number of sides of various polygons.

1. Print the sheet on white cardstock, one per person.

2. Have each child take a red crayon or colored pencil. As you say (or draw) the number of sides, they lightly color the rectangle with that term. Example: "Color in the word that means a 4 sided polygon." [Color in "quadrilateral."] After you've gotten through the first 8 terms on the sheet...

3. Now do the same thing in reverse. Have each child take a blue crayon or colored pencil. As you say one of the terms from the top of the page (already colored in red), they color in the card with that number of sides using blue. Example: "Color in the number of sides on an octagon." [Color in "8 sides."] Now everything should be colored in except the last two terms.

4. Do students know what "regular" vs. "irregular" polygons are? Review. If they don't, look here. Color the regular/irregular cards green.

5. Cut out cards.

6. Mix up cards. Match corresponding red and blue cards.

As you read the book, The Greedy Triangle, ask students to lay out the red and blue cards that match the polygon on each page.

Give children some popsicle sticks. Tell them to lay out the "triangle"  and "regular" cards. Ask them to make a polygon with those criteria. What do students notice about their polygons? Are they alike? Different?

 Ask them to lay out the "quadrilateral" and "irregular" cards. Make a polygon. Are their figures the same?

Ask students to set aside all cards except the following: triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, regular and irregular. Each child should select one card of each color (red and green) and lay it out in front of him. (Use the blue cards as needed if kids need reinforcement to recall how many sides are on each polygon.)

This is one awesome irregular pentagon. Dude!

Now, have kids switch places and build a polygon based on the cards at his new spot. Rotate around the table, placing cards, building, and checking polygons.

See our first Polygon Play session here. 

Look, Ma! Another irregular pentagon!

Captain, we are ready for irregular triangle takeoff!

Whoa. Irregular quadrilaterals are too cool for words.

P.S. The content in this post has been heavily influenced by Bridges lessons. Love them! :)

Polygon Play (Geometry Class #2 Part I, Fall 2010)

Math class today. We did so many things that I'm going to break it into a series of posts. :)

Started with a brief review of tangrams by reading Grandfather Tang's Story. I provided tangrams so the kids could construct the animals as the story went along, but the story became too captivating...they slowly abandoned the pieces to fully concentrate on what was happening. Great book!

We continued with a review of polygons. Last week we discussed the characteristics of a polygon. I drew a variety of figures on the board and they told me which were polygons and which were not. Since we'd read The Greedy Triangle last week, we quickly flipped through the book to see the polygons used there.

We then made a flapbook...the word "polygon" on the outside of the flap and the characteristics listed inside. (This is not pictured.)

And now...to make a quiz for their parents...to see if they know about polygons. They LOVED that idea! We made a series of 6 flaps (see right photo...one flap is open.) I had them cut off the top flap to make a "title" area..."Is this a polygon?" They then drew 5 figures of their choice on top of the 5 remaining flaps. Under each, they wrote "yes" or "no" to indicate whether the figure is a polygon. They used rulers to make sure the straight lines were actually straight.

In the process of assessing their parents, this became a quick assessment to see if they had a solid understanding of polygons. With fun in the process!

Nice addition to polygon lessons:


Geometric Stick Lessons

Math Poems

Someone posted on the Sonlight Forum to say that her sister/nieces had written some math poetry. I wrote to the author, Belinda, and got permission to share them.  I think they're fantastic!!! ;)

Rectangle got butted by a ram

And now he's a parallelogram

Headless triangle gets annoyed

When everyone calls him trapezoid

A square that gets caught in a wind gust

Directly turns into a rhombus

Rectangular prism gets the blues

When people use him as a box for shoes

Aren't they awesome?!!!! Try making up some of your own. Illustrate them! And explore more MATH POETRY ideas.

Table TOP Math - make tops, learn math, have fun!

I don't think we're supposed to have this much fun...or do this much math...when sick. ;)

We made "table tops"...tops that, you guessed it, spin on the table. As I led my 7yo student through the lesson, I asked him to help me identify mathematical vocabulary as we constructed the tops. We then experimented with all kinds of designs, trying to guess what each would look like when spinning. Here's a short video showing some of our table tops in action...



I made a pdf document showing the steps to make a table top and the mathematical vocabulary/math extensions that can be discussed during the process. It's appropriate for ages 7-12 or so. Adjust mathematical vocabulary accordingly. If you would like a free copy of the pdf, send me your contact information using my gmail address (on the right side) or post your contact info in the comments below. (I won't do anything with your contact info except send you the pdf.)

Coincidentally, I just picked up If You Were a Quadrilateral by Molly Blaisdell (2010 publication) that uses the majority of the vocabulary we reviewed today. It's a perfect go-along. We also recalled the Lell Dragons ("Pair of Lells!" = parallel lines), the "'cute" steeply angled rooftops (acute angles) and the Mountains of Obtuse (obtuse angles) from Sir Cumference and the Great Knight of Angleland. Not to mention parallelograms as described in Sir Cumference and the First Round Table.