Thursday, July 17, 2014

How to Sneak in Math with Sir Cumference, Lady Di of Ameter, and their son, Radius


Most parents of elementary-aged children have heard of the terms 'summer setback' or 'learning loss', and while my kids homeschool pretty much year 'round, I hear from friends that yes, this happens. It's why math textbooks put an entire chapter or two devoted to picking up where they left on last year, so children have time to review it. 

This summer, though, just by reading great books, your kid could not only stay with their grade level in reading and math, but could learn a new thing or two while they're at it. The book series I'm presenting today are written by Cindy Neuschwander. She wrote a quirky picture-book series all about a knight named Sir Cumference. He's married to Lady Di of Ameter, and (do you see where this is all going?) they have a young son named Radius, who through the series begins as a young boy and graduates to knight of his own later on.

These books have real math terms everywhere, and explanations on the hows and whys of mathematical ideas, written in a way that children can understand. Now, Susie Q isn't going to whip out a calculator and start graphing calculus equations, but she might learn what the term pi means, and what a cone is shaped like. 

Our family has read about five of these math adventure tales, and my son loves them. He always says he hates math, but these books, and the concepts behind math, he can understand and play around with after reading. That's the goal. They're funny, too, and I can appreciate a clever math pun. 

The stories we have read are the following:


Cindy has a number of other Sir Cumference books in the series that I'm putting on hold from the library. I also see she has a different math series about children around the world. Those aren't at our local library, but I'm going to request they buy them. 

Math and world travel? 

Those kids will never know what hit them.

*****
If reading aloud isn't always your thing at bedtime, youtube has a number of these in full.

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