The Grapes Of Math by Gregory Tang Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Grapes Of Math
Book Review: Grapes of Math
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a collection of 16 illustrated poems. In the back are the complete solutions. Most of the riddles deal with the repeated addition style of multiplication, but with a twist. In an array of five rows and five columns, there may be three missing. So, in order to find the total of 22 quickly, the student is guided to multiply five times five and then subtract the three missing ones.The rhymes are catchy with the question in a different color font to help students when learning to decipher word problems. There is also a tip to the mental math solution following the question. The goal of this book is assisting students in learning to manipulate groups of objects in their mind.
I would suggest using a few poems as examples with real manipulatives and demonstrating to students how and why the solution can be found mentally. Read the solution along with them and physically move objects to show how they can multiply and then add or subtract, or even regroup objects. When students begin to catch on, invite them to try some more from the book, and write out the solutions before checking their answers. Advanced students may even want to create their own puzzles and illustrations. As an extra challenge, they can write the poems to go along with it. All of Tang's poems are written in couplets and this has the potential for being a good integration with language arts.
Why 5 stars?:
Tang has crafted a wonderful set of thinking exercises for students to explore mathematical properties through the use of patterns. By practicing with these poems, hopefully they will change the way in which they "see" difficult problems and be able to visualize in a way that makes sense to them.
Book Review: Great for the Early Grades!
Summary: 4 Stars
I sought out this book hoping to find material for my fifth grade classroom. I found the book to be better suited for grades 2-4. My students would probably have been interested in the puzzles, but I found it to be just that, a fun book for my students, not a book that I could really build a lesson around. I suppose I could have discussed different strategies for looking at problems, but that would have been about it. If you are looking for lesson material try checking out something by Theoni Pappas instead!Book Review: Great for the Early Grades!
Summary: 4 Stars
I sought out this book hoping to find material for my fifth grade classroom. I found the book to be better suited for grades 2-4. My students would probably have been interested in the puzzles, but I found it to be just that, a fun book for my students, not a book that I could really build a lesson around. I suppose I could have discussed different strategies for looking at problems, but that would have been about it. If you are looking for lesson material try checking out something by Theoni Pappas instead!Book Review: Great idea
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is wonderful. Finally there are great books that celebrate math!! This is an awesome book for older children. I'd say at least 1st grade (some Kindergartener would really enjoy it). However, done properly, it's too time consuming for a preschooler. My 3 year old, even though he's very bright, could only hang for 3 pages doing it the right way. After that we just kind of made up our own *way*. Don't be discouraged to buy it, though, because no matter what the age, you can never encourage math enough!!! Great book, great buy!!Book Review: MAT 146 Review
Summary: 3 Stars
I am a Pima College student, majoring in Elementary Education. I read The Grapes of Math, to a resource room class, during their math hour. The students in the class were grade first through fifth. The kids thought that the riddles were silly, but did not understand that they were supposed to answer the riddles. Most of the students were not familiar with the math terms that were used in the book, and I had to explain the vocab to them for each riddle. I really enjoyed the book, but I would recommend that it be used for 5th or 6th grade classrooms.