Customer Reviews

On Beyond a Million: An Amazing Math Journey

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is definately for older children. I teach 5th grade and it is to much for them. The facts that are included are very interesting and my kids love those. For my fifth graders i only use the creative facts throughout the book to help my students realize how big a million, billion,...and so in is. I felt the story was hard to follow. It is all in bubble - like a cartoon which was confusing to follow and not easy to read. For older students i think this book would be great. It does teach how easy it is to count using the power of 10's.

My nine-year-old enjoyed having me read this book to him, though it was not nearly as compelling as some other math books we've read for fun, such as Math Trek or The Number Devil. I liked his getting a better picture of the real meanings of big numbers, since he'd had a lamentable tendency to use the words for large numbers, such as "million", "billion", and "trillion", interchangeably. My five-year-old enjoyed the pictures, though he really did not get the concepts.

On Beyond a Million is fantastic. I shared it with my third grade class as part of a lesson about big numbers (and a pre-pre-introduction to the basis of scientific notation, although I didn't take it that far with the kids). The book calls counting by powers of ten "power counting" and that was quite adequate for 9 year olds! The book is well written, full of fun illustrations, and presents the concept of big numbers and "power counting" in a way that third graders found highly engaging. I have to admit, however, the book also enabled me a greater understanding of what really big numbers are all about... and there's not a google of anything, by the way :) On Beyond a Million also includes a number of interesting # facts (e.g. how much rain forest is destroyed every minute, number of mosquitoes a little brown bat eats, and how many hairs on a square inch of a human head) that get bigger as larger powers of ten are introduced page by page. After reading this book to/with the class I showed them Ray and Charles Eames' "Powers of Ten." The book gave meaning to large numbers and what adding a power of ten does and was a perfect intro for the film. I've also taught 5th and 6th grade and am confident the book would interest just about any audience. I loved it!

On Beyond a Million is my sons favorite math storybook. Since reading this book, I hear them using the words google and googleplex in conversations with each other. They are young (ages 5 and 7), so I don't think they understood all of it, but my seven year old figured out exponents from the book, and now he can do exponents on his own. It introduced more advanced math concepts in a fun way.

My son loves numbers and frequently asks questions about large numbers "What is bigger than googol?" I wasn't sure if he would be able to follow everything but he really enjoyed the writing style of the book which was very story-like. He understood it and really enjoyed some of things he learned (like, there is no such number as a zillion).

Great for G/T youngsters who can read and like math and great for kids of all ages!

I liked that this book was fun, but it was hard to read and go from bubble to bubble on every page. That made it very easy to get lost in and throughout the story. I did like that it had a lot of fun facts, which came in handy for older kids at least 4th grade. The book was also very good for the powers of 10. I would recommend it for teachers who are at least 4th grade to about 6th grade.