Hey, look! A new book from the folks at Natural Math, now on Kickstarter:
Modultown! A Math-Inspired Children’s Book
Experience a whimsical puzzle hunt in a new fantastic world full of friendship and surprises, from the authors of Funville Adventures.
When human siblings Emmy and Leo find themselves magically transported to Modultown, they make new friends and combine their different perspectives to solve challenges that flesh out the mechanics of modular arithmetic.
Playing in Modultown unlocks pathways into number theory, computer science, genetics, and other essential modern fields.
NOTE: If you haven’t explored Kickstarter before, it’s a wonderful place to discover new books and products from creators around the world.
In the old days, traditional publishing companies paid writers in advance to write the books the publisher wanted to see. In this new world, you get to choose and support the writers creating books you want to read.
Farzanah and the 17 Camels celebrates the excitement and the rewards of solving a challenging and intriguing math problem. Set against the backdrop of the ancient Silk Road, with bustling markets, stunning carpets, fun characters, and camels, the story draws readers into the magic of Farzanah’s surroundings.
As Farzanah searches for an unusual approach, a way of solving the problem that no one else could think of, she follows the wise advice of her mother:
“My dear Farzanah, don’t be discouraged,” said Mama. “Sometimes, being stuck is exactly where you need to be. I find the best thing I can do is to step away. I free my mind to think about other things. It is in that space that the magic happens. I am able to look at things from a different perspective. With wait time and wishful thinking comes the solution.”
Farzanah embodies the joy of productive struggle in mathematical problem-solving. She is patient, persistent, and curious, using these qualities to tackle a perplexing dilemma that has troubled everyone.
For a bonus math puzzle you can play today, based on Farzanah’s life, download Farzanah’s Sheep Dilemma.
Looney’s earlier book, Ying and the Magic Turtle, is available on the Natural Math website. Or check out her Same But Different discussion prompts for all ages on her website.
What is a “living book”? English education reformer Charlotte Mason introduced this term for any book that brings the reader directly into contact with the major ideas that have fascinated humans across the ages.
We know that reading aloud helps build our children’s love for books. But did you know it works for math as well?
And that it can transform the parent’s attitude as well as the child’s?
A playful math book fleshes out the bones of abstract math, brings it alive, makes it human, relatable, interesting to readers of all ages, opening our eyes to the wonderful world of big ideas, where concepts meet and topics intertwine in a beautifully intricate dance of understanding.
We live in an age of abundance, with more new creative math books being published every year, so many that I can’t keep track of them all, not to mention the older classics, some out of print, that can still be found in public libraries.
Here are a few of my favorite books of playful, living math, both old and new:
“Denise Gaskins’s work is consistently lovely and playful, so go check it out if you do any journaling or any other sort of mathematical writing with children.”
—Christopher Danielson, author of Which One Doesn’t Belong?
It’s finally here! 312 Things To Do with a Math Journal includes number play prompts, games, math art, story problems, mini-essays, geometry investigations, brainteasers, number patterns, research projects, and much more.
These activities work at any grade level, and most can be enjoyed more than once. It doesn’t matter whether your students are homeschooled or in a classroom, distance-learning, or in person. Everyone can enjoy the experience of playing around with math.
And there’s a new one coming soon, from the wonderful people at Natural Math.
“Long ago in the land of China, there were many rain storms … and the land of China was slowly sinking into the sea. This is the story of how a wise emperor, an observant girl, and a magic turtle saved the villages of China from the great flood.”
So begins the story of Ying and the Magic Turtle.
Children, parents, and teachers can enjoy the book for its rich beauty in mathematics and as an ancient legend.
We can play with the mathematics, too, solving the puzzle of the turtle’s shell right alongside Ying.
And we can delve deeper into the power of magic squares by working with puzzles presented at the end of the story.
Join the Crowdfunding Campaign
For more details about Ying and the Magic Turtle, including a peek at the delightful illustrations, check out the Kickstarter crowdfunding page:
Teen author Teresa GaskinsDo you enjoy binge reading tales of epic fantasy?
Love exploring magical worlds wracked by the struggle of good against evil?
Then don’t miss Teresa Gaskins’s four-book serial adventure, The Riddled Stone.
Those of us who read her earlier books have waited eagerly to hear how the story ends. Two years longer than we hoped, since she had to squeeze in her writing between calculus exams and college essays.
But finally, it’s done!
Now a homeschool graduate, she wrote the last few scenes right at the tail end of her nineteenth year — which means these will be Teresa’s final books as a teen author.
Check them out…
The Riddled Stone: Omnibus Edition, Four Books in One
How can a knight fight magic?
Christopher Fredrico loved the quiet life of a scholar-in-training. Plenty of spare time to spend with his friends. But the night Crown Prince Tyler came to dinner, everything changed.
Falsely accused of stealing a magical artifact and banished under threat of death, Chris leaves the only home he knows.
But as he and his three friends travel towards the coast, they find a riddle that may save a kingdom — or cost them their lives.
Discover the full story of The Riddled Stone, complete in one volume.
A gift she never wanted. A curse she can’t escape.
Alone in the dark, Nora of Yorc feels the dungeon walls pressing in. Even worse, the duke’s sorcery weaves itself around her, unseen and deadly. But as the spell tightens, shy, fragile Nora breaks — and something new takes her place.
Or something old beyond memory.
Nora joined this quest to help her friends. But can she stop herself before the wildness within destroys them all?
Find out in Revealed, the exciting conclusion of Teresa Gaskins’s four-book serial fantasy adventure, The Riddled Stone.
“There are some obvious protagonists and some obvious villains, but Gaskins creates a nice ambiguity around several of the key characters. The plot itself is interesting and engaging with multiple levels of motivation that drive it along.”
“I enjoyed the book and I am absolutely amazed at how such a young author can write so well. I definitely see her going far in her writing career, and I can’t wait to see what stories she publishes next.”
CREDITS: Feature image of Neuschwanstein Castle, Schwangau, Germany, (top) by William West via Unsplash. Author photo by Christina Vernon, MelliRu.com.
Today we have a guest post — an exclusive tale by Sasha Fradkin and Allison Bishop, authors of the new math storybook Funville Adventures. Enjoy!
Funville Adventures is a math-inspired fantasy that introduces children to the concept of functions, which are personified as magical beings with powers.
Each power corresponds to a transformation such as doubling in size, rotating, copying, or changing color. Some Funvillians have siblings with opposite powers that can reverse the effects and return an object to its original state, but other powers cannot be reversed.
In this way, kids are introduced to the mathematical concepts of invertible and non-invertible functions, domains, ranges, and even functionals, all without mathematical terminology.
We know about Funville because two siblings, Emmy and Leo, were magically transported there after they went down an abandoned slide.
When they came back, Emmy and Leo shared their adventures with their friends and also brought back the following manuscript written by their new friend Blake.
Have you noticed that we live in a wonderful era of mathematical innovation? Not only at the “it’s all over my head” level — which is growing faster than anyone can keep up with — but also at the Cool Math For Kids level.
So many things! I’m sure I forgot one (or several) of your favorite modern-classic math books or toys. I’d love to hear about them in the comments.
And here are a few bits of new playful math. Click, support, and share!
Math Renaissance
In alternating chapters, Rodi Steinig tells stories about her math circle and exactly what happens there, while her daughter Rachel discusses why so many kids hate math, documents the ways math is taught in the classroom — and ways that can be improved.
When 9-year-old Emmy and her 5-year-old brother Leo go down an abandoned dilapidated slide, they are magically transported into Funville — a land inhabited by ordinary-looking beings, each with a unique power to transform objects.
I had the fun of previewing this book. It’s a cute little fairy tale that should help launch family conversations about math.
Trouble with Monkeys
A boy wants to surprise his dad, but meddlesome monkeys keep getting in the way. The boy is interviewed by the local news, and the story escalates to involve pirates, ballerinas, ninjas — and the magic of our place value number system.
It’s finally here! 312 Things To Do with a Math Journal includes number play prompts, games, math art, story problems, mini-essays, geometry investigations, brainteasers, number patterns, research projects, and much more.
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 