2/16/2016: February is a fabulous time to study inventors!

Do your kids enjoy tinkering and expressing their creativity?

February is a particularly great time to bring inventors into your lessons to inspire your students to explore their own innovative ideas for inventions.  It is the birth month of many famous inventors, and famous African-American inventors are also fun to study as part of Black History Month.  For example, my first-grade level F reader Garrett Morgan: Inventor, will describe to your students the important inventions this great African-American inventor made, including the traffic signal light. This is one of the books contained in the collection of leveled readers entitled "Famous African-Americans in U.S. History, Leveled Books for Grades 1 – 3."

February 11th is the birthday of birthday of Thomas Edison.  My first grade level E reader “Thomas Edison: Inventor” will teach your students interesting facts while they will build their vocabulary and improve their reading comprehension.  Benjamin Franklin recently had a birthday, on January 17th.   In Benjamin Franklin, my first-grade Level G reader, students will learn about this famous American  statesman, writer, printer, scientist, and inventor.

Combining reading and social studies activities, this first-grade Level F reader provides interesting facts about Alexander Graham Bell- Inventor of the Telephone. Your students will build their vocabulary and improve their reading comprehension as they read the story, answer questions, and have fun with the criss cross puzzle.  My second grade leveled reader "Robert Fulton - Steamboat Inventor" provides a brief history of Robert Fulton's life and his love for invention. Steamboats, a submarine, and canal systems were some of the projects he worked on during his lifetime. I hope that you enjoy exploring inventions and inspiring creativity in your own classroom.

3/10/2015: Happy 150th Anniversary to "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

2015 is the 150th anniversary of the classic book “Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland.”

Mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who is better known as Lewis Carroll, is the author of “Alice’s Adventure’s in Wonderland” and its sequel “Through the Looking Glass.”   

Besides being lots of fun to read, these stories are also full of adventures for the brain.  

The BBC shares how the stories of Alice and her adventures are now inspiring modern neuroscientists.  A fascinating story from NPR shares that the first version of the Alice story that he wrote for the real Alice Liddel had no mathematical references, but the books now contain many clever math references.

Your students will be able to study math and vocabulary with my Math Topics readers.  This original series of leveled books is written to incorporate the Fountas and Pinnell leveled vocabulary, Rebecca Sitton spelling words, and general core curriculum standards for grades K-6 in the United States.

8/3/2014 Hooray for LEGOS, Girls, and STEM!

 In January, seven-year-old Charlotte wrote a letter to LEGO criticizing their lack of interesting females figures:

"All the girls did was sit at home, go to the beach, and shop, and they had no jobs, but the boys went on adventures, worked, saved people, and had jobs, even swam with sharks.”

This June, LEGO announced a new set, the Research Institute which features women in various STEM jobs: a paleontologist, a chemist, and an astronomer, which is now officially available.  This set was submitted to LEGO by geoscientist Ellen Kooijman as a part of the LEGO Ideas series. “The motto of these Scientists is clear: explore the world and beyond! The Astronomer discovers new stars and planets with the telescope, the Paleontologist studies the origin of the dinosaurs and the Chemist does experiments in the laboratory.”

Study more accomplished women with your class at any time of year with my leveled book set Famous Women in History: Leveled Books for Grades 2 - 4. This collection of leveled readers for second through fourth grade features stories about eight women and their contributions to history.

Encourage an interest in STEM subjects in ALL of your students, boys and girls, with my Nature & Science books, including Leveled Book set Kindergarten Levels A/B, Louis Pasteur - Exploring Pasteurization and Vaccines, and The Legend of the Unicorn: The Narwhal, and my original play, Trees – A Joy Forever.  My second-grade level L reader reader Cubes - Alike or Different is a great option to combine reading, language, and math skills.  

5/19/2014 Fun with Math: The Invention of the Rubik's Cube

“If you are curious, you’ll find the puzzles around you. If you are determined, you will solve them.”

Erno Rubik

40 years ago today, the colorful puzzle known as the Rubik’s Cube was invented.  The Rubik’s Cube is named for its inventor, the Hungarian sculptor and  architecture professor Ernő Rubik.  It was originally patented in Hungary as the “Magic Cube.”  The cubes were first sold in toy shops in Hungary in 1977, and worldwide in 1980.  

The Rubik’s Cube is a fun way to explore numbers.  The original Rubik's Cube is 3x3x3, it has eight corners and twelve edges. There are 40,320 ways to arrange the corner cubes, and that is just the corner cubes!  In all, there are about 43 quintillion starting points. Dutch teenager Mats Valk is the current world record holder for the fastest solving of the puzzle at 5.55 seconds (see video above)

Your students can play with an online version of the Groovix Cube on display in Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J as part of their “Beyond Rubik’s Cube” exhibition.   You can teach your students more about different sizes of cubes with my second-grade level L reader reader Cubes - Alike or Different. It is a great option to combine reading, language, and math skills!

3.14 Happy Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day!

Today, March 14, or 3.14, is celebrated as Pi Day by math lovers across the country.  March 14 is also the birthday of inventor Albert Einstein.  The first known major Pi Day celebration was held at the Exploratorium in San Francisco in 1988.  

Pi (π) is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. The diameter of a circle is the distance from edge to edge, measuring straight through the center.  For all circles of any size, Pi will always be the same. Pi is used to calculate the area of a circle, the volume of a sphere, and in many other basic math and scientific formulas.  Pi has been calculated to over one trillion digits beyond its decimal point. Pi is an irrational and transcendental number, which means that Pi will continue without repetition or pattern infinitely.  

The Exploratorium and  piday.org have some great educational activity suggestions for teachers, including incorporating games, crafts and baking activities into a pi-themed lesson plan.  My Math Topics readers are a fun way to work on vocabulary and reading with your students while bringing more math activities into your classroom.  Enjoy some delicious learning!