To start off, I am a math nerd. I actually love math, and am one of the few elementary school teachers (and definitely librarians) that think math is fun. I own a couple great math books, and used them in various lessons when I was an classroom teacher. The Greedy Triangle was one of my favorite books for teaching the names of shapes; it's perfect for 4th and 5th grade.
I also love some fun and entertaining poetry. I know many kids, including reluctant readers, that can devour a Shel Silverstein book. Poetry is powerful.
Combining poetry with my love of a fun picture book and math has the potential for a lot of awesomeness.
Hungry for Math: Poems to Munch On by Kari-Lynn Winters, Lori Sherritt-Fleming, and Peggy Collins is a math concept poetry book with cute colorful pictures and some great poems like the one below.
I give Hungry Math 2.5 out of 5 stars in my book review. I love that this book is bringing math and literacy together. I love the colorful and fun pictures.. I think there are a few poems that are really great, and teachers in the upper elementary grades could really use them. All of the great poems are at the front of the book, but the second half of the book doesn't have the best poems.
As far as layout is concerned, the pictures are really great. However, some of the longer poems are spread out among 4 pages or 2 page spreads. I think the poem would be better for readers and more powerful if they were on one page spread (2 connected pages). It's easy to lose speed and the rhythm of the poem when turning the page.
Overall, there are some great poems, but I don't think it's enough to purchase one for my classroom library. However, I think it would be a great book for an elementary school library to own and allow teachers to reference.
Amazon has the following book description:
"Kari-Lynn Winters and Lori Sherritt-Fleming team up again for another poetry collection for young readers with the emphasis on math concepts including measuring time, patterns, counting, symmetry, numbers, shapes, estimating and more!
He was hungry for math, always ready to munch.
Math for his breakfast, math for his lunch.
He'd pig out on pie charts and bar graphs galore,
binge on skip-counting, and still ask for more.
binge on skip-counting, and still ask for more.
Shapes — he discovered — were less filling fare.
He'd taste test a rhombus, sparing room for a square.
He'd taste test a rhombus, sparing room for a square.
He'd devour the dollars atop his dessert,
then slurp on the coins he'd slopped on his shirt.
then slurp on the coins he'd slopped on his shirt.
At night, in the dark, he'd gnaw on base ten,
toss back some clocks, and crunch numbers again." Be honest, do you love or hate math?
Happy Poetry and Math reading and Happy Using Literature to Teach Math!
I received this book from Myrick Marketing in exchange for my honest review. All thoughts and reviews are my own.
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