A Math Story

On Saturday, we went to the library book fair and found several great reads. Firstly, we got most of the Beatrix Potter books for 10 cents each in that cute little dark-green hardcover format. Then, we found the best book of all, a math story, if you will. It's called A Remainder of One by Elinor J. Pinczes and it tells the story of the 25th regiment and its efforts to make parade lines so that no single soldier is left over at the end of the line. It really does a good job of illustrating what a remainder is and why we get them. It's the perfect launching point for discussions of other remainders and for a hands on activity involving division and remainders. Gather together a bunch of pennies, beads, pom-poms, whatever you have alot of that your child can easily manipulate. Then, ask him/her to make 17 using two rows that are as even as possible, or 3 rows or even 4. Then do it with a different amount. This is a good way of showing division/multiplication facts.