Making Math fun: Little Learning Labs Math Games for Kids by Rebecca Rapoport; J.A. Yoder

When my children were in school, a wise teacher said to always encourage girls to do math and to let them know that they can do every bit as well in math as in English.  While this book is for all children, I was reminded of how important it is to introduce math as a fun subject and one that can lead to experimentation and knowledge.  Math is not just supposed to be learning the basic four functions as this book so ably proves.

Geared toward children ages six to ten (though I think older children too), the book is divided into sections on topics like geometry and fractals.  The experiments and activities are very hands on and photos help to show kids what to do.  Wise adults will encourage children to explore and not focus on perfection, but rather on the learning process as they do the activities that they find appealing.

Filled with things that can be done at home or school, this book is an excellent resource.  Many thanks to NetGalley and Quarto for this book in exchange for an honest review.

#LittleLearningLabsMathGamesForKidsAbridgedPaperbackEdition #NetGalley From the Publisher WELCOME TO THE SECRET WORLD OF MATHEMATICIANS. This is your introduction to the gorgeous, exciting, beautiful math that only professionals see. What’s truly astounding is that it’s accessible, even for kids ages six to ten. We think that if more kids had a chance to play with a wider world of math, there would be far more math enthusiasts in the world. Most people think you learn math by climbing a sort of ladder: first addition, then subtraction, then multiplication, then fractions, and so on. In fact, math is much more like a tree. There are many different areas of math that require only a basic foundation. Plenty of this lovely and woefully ignored math doesn’t require any previous knowledge. It’s accessible to everyone, if they only knew it existed. GEOMETRY Geometry is the study of shapes. There are a lot of different ways a shape can be. It can be flat (like a circle or a square) with two dimensions—length and width. It can be solid (like a block or a ball) with three dimensions length, width, and height. A shape can be made from lines connected at corners (mathematicians call these edges and vertices; we’ll learn more about those in chapter 6), or it can be made up of curves. A shape can have different numbers of edges and corners, or a different arrangement of curves from another shape. A shape can have different sizes. TOPOLOGY Topology is one of many ways to study shapes. In topology, you can deform, or change, a shape in certain ways—by stretching, bulging, or squeezing—without turning it into a different shape. However, the rules of topology say you can’t glue a shape to itself or poke a hole in it, because if you do that, you’ve created a new shape. Topologists study these changeable shapes to explore what other properties of a shape are still important. COLOR MAPS LIKE A MATHEMATICIAN When you color a map, you’re probably most interested in making it beautiful. When mathematicians talk about coloring a map, they’re trying to figure out the fewest number of colors they can use so that no touching areas are the same color. Often, the “map” is not of a place—it’s a picture with various regions to color. Mathematicians study map coloring to learn about efficiency and conflict resolution. Today, one important application of map coloring is for cell phone frequencies. STITCHING CURVES Sometimes equations are too hard to solve, even for professionals! For these problems, people invent methods that are easy to compute and that approximate (come close to) the solution. This branch of mathematics is called Numerical Analysis.These numerical algorithms are usually done on a computer, and by doing more calculations you can make your approximate solution as good as you need. Curve stitching is a way to approximate a curve by drawing only straight lines, without any computation needed. The closer you draw the lines together, the better the approximation to the curve you make. We can use the same technique to make a variety of curves and shapes that can be turned into beautiful art. FANTASTIC FRACTALS A fractal is a shape that is similar to itself no matter how far you zoom in on one particular part. Fractals occur in nature, such as in ice crystals freezing on a window. They are interesting to mathematicians and scientists as part of Chaos Theory and the study of patterns found in nature where parts are similar to the whole. For example, look at the ferns on the right. Notice how the blue branch of the fern looks like a smaller copy of the green fern, and the purple portion of the fern has a very similar shape to both the whole green fern and the blue branch. Understanding fractals has helped research in the stock market, fluids, astronomy, and weather. Fractals are also interesting to artists simply because they are beautiful. GRAPH THEORY Graph Theory is the study of how things are interconnected. This includes how computers are connected to each other in your house and on the Internet, how to efficiently place power plants to provide electricity in cities, the best locations to put fast food restaurants so that no one is too far from their favorite junk food, how to plan airplane flight paths, and more.

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I love to read, recommend books and open the world of reading to others. I tutor to ensure that the next generation of readers will know the joys of a good book because their reading skills have improved. I am an avid reader, especially of mysteries and fiction. I believe that two of the world's greatest inventions were the public library and eyeglasses! View all posts by joycesmysteryandfictionbookreviews