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STEM Tuesday– Math– In the Classroom

By on March 14, 2023   /   Math, STEM Tuesday   /   Leave a comment

 

What’s the story of math? It’s more than logical equations, patterns, and exact answers. These STEM Tuesday books tell of math’s history, its use, and how it integrates into the lives of fictional characters. Bring the story of math into the classroom with these fun activities.

A Quick History of Math

by Clive Gifford, illustrated by Michael Young

This book chronicles the history of math, beginning with the Lebombo bone (the very first mathematical object in the world) all the way to the present day. Readers will learn how to count like an Egyptian using hieroglyphs and how to do matha-magic with magic squares. It’s fun and engaging, and also packed with jokes, graphics, and activities.

 

Classroom activity: Reenact the history of math with micro-performances in the classroom. Have students research a moment of math history from the book. Then ask them to create a little skit to act out that moment. Some examples could be:

  • An Ancient Egyptian store where the cashier adds up purchases using heiroglyphs
  • Be a Babylonian math teacher and teach the class to add
  • Host a Chinese magic squares game show
  • Stage a short counting story play using Mayan math

Encourage students to create visuals, add math jokes, and interact with their audience. See how creative they can be!

What’s the Point of Math? What's the Point of Math? by DK

by DK

What’s the Point of Math? not only highlights how math is all around us, but also,that math is fun. Through a slew of fun facts, magic tricks, and mathematical brainteasers, readers will be entertained while they learn. The book also touches on the history of math as well as bios of famous mathematicians.

 

Classroom activity: Pick a famous mathematician from the book to write about. Have students research their mathematician and write a short biography of that person. Ask them to find photos or images to go along with parts of their bios. Encourage students to write interesting hooks at the beginning of their bios and titles for their biographies.

Much Ado About Baseball

Much Ado about Baseball

by Rajani Larocca

Although this is fiction, Much Ado about Baseball is a stellar book. To be clear, it doesn’t specifically teach readers about mathematical concepts, but the narrative connects to math in many ways. For example, twelve-year-old protagonist Trish is able to solve tough math problems and loves baseball. When she moves and joins a new baseball team, they must solve a difficult puzzle or there will be tragic consequences.

 

Classroom activity: Part of writing fiction is developing characters. Ask students to develop a math-loving character. They should write descriptions of the character and how math is part of their lives. Pose these prompts: What kind of personality does this person have? What do they look like? What kind of math goals do they have? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Have students create posters with an image of their character, their character’s name, and a description of what they are like.

 

Karen Latchana Kenney loves to write books about animals, and looks for them wherever she goes—from leafcutter ants trailing through the Amazon rain forest in Guyana, where she was born, to puffins in cliff-side burrows on the Irish island of Skellig Michael. She especially enjoys creating books about nature, biodiversity, conservation, and groundbreaking scientific discoveries—but also writes about civil rights, astronomy, historical moments, and many other topics. Visit her at https://latchanakenney.wordpress.com

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It’s Almost Spring! Bringing Books to Life in the Great Outdoors

By on March 13, 2023   /   Articles   /   Leave a comment

Whether the children in your lives are eager lovers of literature or more reluctant readers, finding ways to bring books to life with outdoor activities can be a fun way to encourage thoughtful reading practices and to make books even more engaging. Below are a few ideas for how you might create activities to bring the events of a novel to life for the young readers in your life.

 

Nest, by Esther Ehrlich, can be adapted into real-life activities in many ways. Set in the 1970’s, this is the story of a family dealing with mental illness. Despite these heavier tones, there’s still a lot of joy in the story from which to pull inspiration. Young readers could go birdwatching just like the main character Chirp and look up the birds they spot in a field guide. Similarly, Chirp creates a dance routine to the song Help! by the Beatles. Young readers can do this too. It doesn’t need to be anything professional or elaborate but getting up and moving to a song (Beatles or not) provides a lot of physical fun and memorizing a dance routine is a good brain exercise, too! And it’s even more fun if it’s performed outdoors.

 

Book Jacket for Time of the Fireflies

Kimberley Griffiths Little’s novel The Time of the Fireflies also provides more opportunities for readers to engage more fully with the novel.  A picnic dinner to watch fireflies would be ideal for bringing Larissa’s story to life. Other  ideas for bringing her book to life include exploring one’s family history through word of mouth or old pictures and objects or, like Larissa, experience some time travel. Pick a year, help your readers do some research, and then spend an hour or two as though you’ve slipped through time!

 

Winner of the Newberry medal, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate, by Jacqueline Kelly, is another novel rich in the natural world and centered around a loveable, strong female protagonist. Readers of Calpurnia’s story can follow in her footsteps by exploring their yards, neighborhoods, or local parks with a notebook and pencil in hand. Walk slowly and observe with all the senses, taking notes and making sketches of what kinds of flora and fauna are found. A field guide could come in handy for this as well, as some young readers  might want to learn the scientific names of plants and animals they observe. This is a great activity to encourage mindfulness, art skills, and offer a foray into being a naturalist.

 

The First Last Day, by Dorian Cirrone, is also perfect as the weather is warming up. Main character Haleigh finds herself in the midst of a never-ending summer…literally! One activity to bring this novel to life is to encourage young readers to paint memories of their favorite days or to keep a journal of their life through paintings. The passage of time might not freeze as it does for Haleigh, but this is a great way to encourage artistic creativity as well as personal reflection. Other art supplies and mediums can be added or substituted, too.

 

Finally, in my novel, Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe, the main character Cricket goes on a wilderness adventure to try to find her mother. A series of clues leads the way. There are several ways Smack Dab could be brought to life, but one idea is to create a clue-based scavenger hunt for your young readers to solve. This could be as simple as leaving hand-written notes with riddles or descriptions that lead from one location to the next. You can also create more complicated clue trails involving cyphers or clues that relate to poetry or history. Even better if the clues incorporate the outdoors or wilderness! A small prize could be added at the end of the clues or simply solving the scavenger hunt can be the victory. Plus, older kids could orchestrate clues for one another. You can find some activities here.

 

These are a few ideas to get started. Once you start reading with potential outdoor adventures in mind, the sky is the limit. –literally.  Happy reading!

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Finding 40: How to Discover Critique Partners and Elevate Your Writing

By on March 10, 2023   /   Articles, Writing   /   Leave a comment

A few weeks ago my wife and I had a parent-teacher conference for our son in kindergarten. Overall it was a lovely meeting — he’s reading and writing and learning how to take care of worms. But when we got on the subject of math, the teacher’s bright expression faltered just briefly as she said, “There is one area where we’re still having some trouble.” She then explained that when our son counts, he has a habit of reaching the number 39, then jumping back to 20.

My wife and I digested this new revelation, both of us trying to remember when we’d ever asked him to count to 40 (I’m all for the functional application of kindergarten math, but I don’t think we have 40 of anything in our house). To prove her point, the teacher called to him on the other side of the room, and sure enough, he shouted back, “37…38…39…20…21…”

“There you go,” she said to us with a slight shrug. But then she did the teacher thing and helped him on the spot, talking him through the numbers until he broke through the invisible wall between 39 and 40. If she hadn’t intervened, I wonder if we might still be in that conference listening to him count.

We all get stuck sometimes, and I’m especially prone to this tendency in my writing. My plot hits a snag or I can’t get a character motivation quite right, and it’s like getting caught in a loop. I’m missing something, but since I don’t know what it is, I’m stuck repeating the same mistakes and landing in the same place I started. I need someone like my son’s kindergarten teacher to shout the numbers from across the room so I can figure out where I’ve gone wrong. For most writers, this takes the form of a critique partner or a critique group. They’re the people in our lives who listen to us count and tell us when we’ve accidentally skipped back to 20. 

But getting connected with critique partners can be a daunting task. It’s not as simple as  walking into a parent-teacher conference and knowing that the person on the other side of the desk is uniquely equipped to help you solve your problems. And what’s worse — these aren’t just meaningless numbers. They’re words…your words. Words you probably spent months or even years poring over and fine-tuning. I’ve been there. I know it’s scary. But it’s not as scary as being stuck at the number 39 and never even realizing it, so take the leap with me and consider these options to help you break out of the loop and find the number 40.

 

SCBWI Local Critique Groups

If you’re a member of SCBWI (The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators), you may not have realized that it’s one of the best places to get involved in a critique group. Start by reaching out to your local chapter, since every region does things slightly differently. There’s also the SCBWI blueboard, which can be a little challenging to navigate, but does provide a forum for getting connected with other authors. I actually found two or three long-time critique partners through the Blueboard, one of whom eventually connected me with my literary agent!

 

Facebook Groups

Even with all the other social media options out there, Facebook remains one of the best ways for writers to connect, get advice, and collaborate with fellow creators. There are even a few groups that exist almost entirely for the purpose of exchanging manuscripts and critiques. My favorite for this purpose is Kidlit411 manuscript swap but there is also Middle Grade Fictions Writers, where authors often post looking for critique swaps or beta readers. 

 

The Writer’s Match

This highly organized system developed by Megan Taraszkiewicz was created with the purpose of connecting like-minded writers. It’s completely free and could be a great way to establish some new critique partnerships that are tailored to your specific interests and needs.

 

Critique Circle

Critique Circle is one of the most equitable ways to give and receive feedback. Writers earn credits by critiquing others’ work, which can then be applied to posting work and receiving feedback. When using the system, I always found that reading the work of others was just as valuable as the credits, since giving critiques can often be just as insightful as getting them!

 

Additional Lists and Resources

I’m hardly the first author to compile this information, and there are plenty of other blogs and articles that cover the topic. A few of my favorites include Carrie Finison‘s very helpful (and much more comprehensive) list of critique resources, as well as Jane Friedman’s article on how to find the right critique group. 

 

I hope this list has helped you find some motivation to get others in front of your work. It’s been a revelation for me, and I know I’m not the only one who found a jolt of new energy and progress after summoning the courage to let someone else take a peek at that beloved but oh-so-flawed manuscript. You can do it! In fact, let’s practice together right now:

37…38…39…

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