Taking A Brief Break from Technology

For three weeks, I am setting aside all technology and work related items so I can spend some time to relax with my husband, my grandchildren and friends. In the meantime, if you really want something to read, choose one of my older posts. 

 

My blog posts will return on Wednesday, July 23, 2025.

A Day With No Math - Another Book that Links Math and Literature

Who wants to read about math? Who even likes it? Many, many times I have heard a parent of one of my students say, "I understand why my child cannot do math. I was never very good at math, either." Right! So you weren't good at reading; so, your child should be illiterate? So you don't like to play sports; so, PE should be optional? I don't think so.
 

My goal in life is to make people, students, adults, children, comfortable with math; to see its value; to learn to at least like it. After all, there isn't a day that goes by that you don't use math in some form. Did you read a clock today? Did you buy something with money? Did you go to the home improvement store to buy paint? Did you cook or keep score while you played a game? That is all math. Useful - right?


Ask yourself or your students, "What would happen if suddenly there were no numbers?" To find out, read A Day with No Math by Marilyn Kaye, published by Harcourt Brace Jaovanovich, Inc. in 1992. It is a great read aloud book. It's one I have used in workshops and in my own classroom with children, college students and adults. The book demonstrates how mathematics plays an important role in our daily lives and shows the reader how time, measurement, money and other mathematics are used everyday. The story helps kids to understand that math is a part of all aspects of our every day life and without it, our life would be such a mess. Try reading this if you hate math or even if you love it, and you will be surprised at how much math you really know. It will give you a different appreciation for math 

This is a book teachers will treasure to have in your classroom library. Currently, it's difficult to find, but Amazon seems to have a few copies 

Ten Black Dots - Another Book that Links Math and Literature

I am an avid reader, and I love books that integrate math and literature. Lately, my blog has featured books that link the two.  

Available on Amazon
for $7.60

Today's featured book is Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews (Greenwillow Books, 1986).  This picture book is for grades PreK-2 and deals with numbers and operations. 

The book asks the question, What can you do with ten black dots?  Then the question is answered throughout the book by using  illustrations of everyday objects beginning with one dot and continuing up to ten. Simple rhymes accompany the pictures such as:

"Two dots can make the eyes of a fox, Or the eyes of keys that open locks."

Materials Needed: 

• Unifix cubes or Snap Cubes (multi-link cubes) as seen on the right
• Black circles cut from construction paper or black circle stickers
• Crayons
• Pencils
• Story paper
• Calculators -simple ones like you purchase for $1.00 at Walmart

Activities:

1)  Read the book a number of times to your class.  Let the students count the dots in each picture. On about the third reading, have the children use the snap cubes to build towers that equal the number of dots in each picture.

2)  Have the children think of different ways to make combinations, such as: How could we arrange four black dots?  (e.g. 1 and 3, 4 and 0, 2 and 2)  Have the children use black dots or snap cubes to make various combinations for each numeral from 2-10.

3)  This is a perfect time to work on rhyming words since the book is written in whimsical verse. Make lists of words so that the students will have a Word Wall of Rhyming Words for activity #4.

• How many words can we make that rhyme with:  sun?  fox?  face?  grow?  coat?  old?  rake?  rain?  rank?  tree?
• Except for the first letter, rhyming words do not have to be spelled the same.  Give some examples (fox - locks or see - me)

4)  Have the children make their own Black Dot books  (Black circle stickers work the best although you can use black circles cut from construction paper. I'm not a big fan of glue!)  Each child makes one page at a time.  Don't try to do this all in one day.  Use story paper so that the children can illustrate how they used the dots as well as write a rhyme about what they made.  Collate each book, having each child create a cover.

5)  Have the children figure out how many black dots are needed to make each book. (The answer is 55.)  This is a good time to introduce calculators and how to add numbers using the calculator.

If you can't find Ten Black Dots in your library, it is available on Amazon.

Another Book that Links Literature and Math

Available on Amazon
for about $5.99

Did you know that Benjamin Franklin created many inventions, including the Magic Square? (A magic square is a box of numbers arranged so that any line of numbers adds up to be the same number, including the diagonals!) Richard Walz has written a historical fiction book about this. It is fun for the students to read while at the same time it gives them a great deal of historical information. It also contains many activities that can be used along with the book.

History shows that Franklin served as clerk for the Pennsylvania Assembly. Uninterested in the meetings, Ben would doodle on a piece of paper to pass the time. In 1771, he stated, "I was at length tired with sitting there to hear debates, in which, as clerk, I could take no part, and which were often so un-entertaining that I was induc'd to amuse myself with making magic squares or circles" (Franklin 1793). So being bored, Ben wrote down numbers in a box divided into squares, and then pondered how the numbers added up in rows and columns...and thus the Magic Square was born. In fact, he studied and composed some amazing magical squares, even going so far as to declare one square “the most magically magical of any magic square made by any magician.”

The construction and analysis of magic squares provides practice in mental arithmetic, operations with numbers, geometry, and measurement plus it encourages logical reasoning and creativity, all in a game-like setting.  Furthermore, they are a powerful tool for teaching students basic addition skills since each row, column, and diagonal must add up to be the same sum.

One effective way to use a Magic Square is to omit a few of the numbers from the boxes, then have students try to figure out which numbers are missing. To find these numbers, first the students will have to calculate the magic sum. A Magic Square also provides an engaging way to develop mental math skills. Try using magic squares as a warm-up at the beginning of math class or as a math center activity. In addition, students might also want to create their own Magic Squares and then have their classmates solve them.

Below is a magic square for you to solve. You are to arrange the digits 1-9 in the squares below so that each column, row and diagonal adds up to 15. Can you do it?

To find a solution to this magic square puzzle, look under

Answers to Problems at the top of the Home page.

Your students can make their own Magic Squares by following these steps.  Begin by using a box divided into nine squares.  (There are larger ones, but as they grow in size so does the difficulty.)

1. The first numeral is placed in the top row, center column.
2. An attempt is always make to place the next numeral in the square above and to the right of numeral last placed.  All the rest of the rules tell you what to do when rule #2 cannot be satisfied.
3. If, in the placement of the next numeral according to rule #2, the numeral falls above the limits of the magic square, place the numeral in the bottom square of the next column to the right of the last placed numeral.
4. If, in the normal placement of the next numeral, it falls to the right of the limits of the magic square, that numeral is placed in the left-hand square of the row above the last placed numeral.
5. If the cell above and to the right is filled, place the numeral in the cell immediately below the last square filled.
6. Using this method, filling the upper right-hand cell completes a sequence of moves. Then this happens, the next numeral is placed in the cell immediately below the upper right hand corner square.

Do these steps sound absolutely confusing?  Maybe the pictures below will help to clarify the rules.

Now have your students try this.  Using the blank nine squared Magic Square seen above, use the numerals 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 to make each row (horizontal, diagonally & vertical) add up to 45. Ask your students if they see a pattern between this new Magic Square and the first one.  (Ten has simply been added to each digit.)  You might also try making your own at Make Your Own Magic Squares.

This post has only scratched the surface of Magic Squares, but isn't that like most things in math?  I trust your students will give Magic Squares a try while having fun doing it!

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$8.25

Check this math resource entitled Number Tiles for Grades 5-8.  All the puzzles of this 26 page resource are solved in a similar way that magic squares are solved. The activities vary in levels of difficulty. Because the pages are not in any particular order, the students are free to skip around in the book. Since the students do not write in the book, the math-a-magical puzzles can be copied and laminated so that they can be used from year to year.