Butterfly has always been good at math. I remember when she was two and Tiger was 4 they had a discussion about whether the light above my dining table was a hexagon or an octagon and why. She is especially good at all things geometry but she is also good at computations. Once she knows how to do something mathematically, she is extremely accurate. She gets frustrated though because she has a tendency to day dream while she computes and then something will take a long time to compute. Then she doesn’t want to do it anymore. As a result, I decided to give her a little space. After a while, she decided she needed to pick up speed in her facts and has been working on those. In the mean time, Tiger began reading books for Williamsburg that were mathematical in nature for his STEM classes. Butterfly has been systematically going through and doing the readings that he has completed and loving all the books. During this process, I realized there are several great math books out there that have nothing to do with textbooks. For the last couple of weeks, Butterfly has been reading any and all books she can find that are about math and mathematical principles. She has stayed up very very very late with a flashlight reading Tiger’s math book and other books. So, I thought it would be fun to put together a list of books that inspire mathematical learning.
First- Life of Fred.
I have the elementary series, Physics, Pre-Algebra 1 and 2, and Algebra. I need to purchase the Fractions, Decimals, and upper elementary books that were added after I bought my elementary books. I also need to add the high school books above Algebra. I love love love Life of Fred. Life of Fred teaches math in such a hands on way. Math is demonstrated as a part of life. For example, telling time is taught through detailing the day of Fred incrementally. There aren’t tons of problems in the elementary books, but they are effective. Pumpkin Pie learned to tell time through reading Life of Fred with me.
Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Math, Amazing Math Projects you Can Build (Nomad Press), Mathematicians are People Too, and The Math Book
Lauren Ipsum
The Number Devil
A Gebra Named Al
Growing Patterns
The Dot and the Line (about lines, dots, shapes, squiggles) and One Grain of Rice which (about the power of exponential growth)
Sir Cumference
Flatland
One Hundred Hungry Ants
Math Menace
Books by Greg Tang and Blockhead the Life of Fibonacci
Thank you! I've been searching for some great Math books for my kiddos! :)
ReplyDeleteWe've read a couple of these but the other look amazing - thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for this list! I have added it to the "Math & Logic Window" section of our "Learning Windows" binder and have already placed about half of these titles on hold at our local library. Our Life of Fred Elementary set also arrived this weekend and it's been hard to reign the girls (7yo) in... We are doing 2-3 lessons per day and they resist moving on to other things. If we didn't have a number of time-/season-sensitive projects going on, we'd probably be "swimming" in Fred. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of Learning Windows! That sounds neat. Swim on through Fred. You can always come back :)
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