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Math wizardry for kids
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The newly released 2nd edition of "Math Wizardry for Kids" will help both parents and teachers make math exciting and fun. The book, written by Margaret Kenda and Phyllis Williams, published by Barrons, provides fun-to-do projects with hundreds of full color illustrations.
Math in nature
The book is divided into 13 different areas of math explorations. One area encourages children to learn math outdoors by discovering nature's patterns, designs, and numbers. The child is introduced to Leonardo of Pisa(son of Bonacci) who, while living in Algeria was introduced to Hindu-Arabic numerals(1,2,3). When he returned to Italy he wrote books about these useful numbers and discovered a sequence of numbers that helped to explain nature's math. The chapter explores Fibonacci(son of Bonacci)numbers which is the name we know Leonardo by today. Here is an example of fibonacci: 1,1,2,3,5,8.......Can you tell what number is next? The largest fibonacci number that people have found so far has hundreds of digits!
Tangrams and more
In the chapter entitled "Create your own Artistic Designs", the book provides instructions on how to cut out the 7 tans to create a tangram. Since these 7 tans can be put together in hundreds of ways, the art in math becomes endless. This is just one of the many projects in this chapter that delineates the connection between art and math.
Magic squares
Another chapter "Create Magical Puzzles"introduces the children to magic squares. These puzzles have been enjoyed for thousands of years and have lately been revived in the popular suduko puzzles. Magic squares are 3x3 and have space for only 9 numbers. Where is the magic? The children will learn that each row, each column, and each diagonal all add up to the same total.
The book also outlines some basic tools for young math wizards (paper,pencil,compass,protractor) and some guidelines(keep an observation notebook, read all the steps all the way through) but it is the many projects, puzzles, and number games that will provide many hours of fun for children and their families as well as students and their teachers.
Teachers will find the simple directions, explanations, and illustrations of the activities a great supplement to any math curriculum. The reading level of the book is for ages 9 to 12 but the projects would be fun for younger children with some adult assistance.
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