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This book, like the others, does a good job of using verbal jokes to help secure math vocabulary. It's a bit nit-picky of me, perhaps, but one of the most essential things a student should learn about pi is that it is a non-terminating decimal value which got a name because it couldn't be accurately quantified. The young boy, Radius, searches for a cure for his father's unexpected transformation into a dragon, and 3 and 1/7 works as the value for pi needed to restore him to human form. The books are funny, brief, written on a relatively easy level, and -- while most likely to be appreciated fully by students who have already learned the math -- could be enjoyed as stories by even the youngest listeners, as other parent/teacher reviewers have affirmed. As a fifth/sixth grade teacher, I find all of these "Sir Cumference" books to be interesting to students at every stage of learning about the math concepts they present. This is the one mathematically-flawed book in the series, however, which accounts for the 3 star rating. That said, any teacher (or interested parent) could clear up the fuzzy definition.
love every story in this series.Bravo to Cindy Newschwander - Creative, engaging, problem solving, and Dragons. A great resource for homeschoolers or parents of high ability kids who need a different approach - My children (8 and 4 yr). What more does a young math student need.We own the entire Sir Cumference series and revisit them regularly as the concepts take root in our daily lives.Great books, every one.
:) Each story connects math applications in ways children understand and can apply. The entire Sir Cumference Series are a wonderful way to entertain children while teaching math concepts. They don't even realize they are learnin while they enjoy the stories. What a wonderful gift.
I really think that this would be a great book to introduce the concept to kids for them to get a concrete understanding. It has just enough math talk in to get the message about how we get pi across, and I really like that they use a familiar visual reference. I think they're great. I think this book was done really well. It has enough of a story to keep kids interested, and the math doesn't take over so much that it becomes like reading a text book. I also thought it was cute how they explained how we got the word "pi".I purchased this at the same time as Sir Cumference and the First Round Table and SC & the Isle of Immeter, and now I am going to add all the rest of the books in the Charlesbridge Math Adventures series to my wish list.
I will be getting the rest of the set - for myself just as much as my daughter. Some of the other revues questioned the idea of using Pi in such a way, but as a teacher, isn't getting students to learn the material the point. I picked up this book since I was learning about Pi in a math class and I am really glad that I did. My daughter liked the dragon and I liked that it had math ideas for names of the characters. The best way to get students to learn is by making it interesting and enjoyable and I believe this book did just that.
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