Customer Reviews

It's Alive and Kicking: Math the Way it Ought to Be—Tough, Fun, and a Little Weird

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

 

 

This book contains many tough word problems and manages to make them fun by turning them into discoveries about Asa and David, the two authors. Some will gross you out; others will stummp you.

I used this book and it's sister, It's Alive, as the basis for a 3 day contest for my sixth graders in math. Each day, I paired the students randomly. Three points were given for a correct answer and label on the first try, 2 points for a second try, and 1 point for getting the correct answer after a hint from me.The pair that received the most points, won a blue excellence ribbon which they wore for the rest of the day. The competetion was fierce. My students never worked this hard for a grade. They loved the disgusting math facts about germs, tape worms, sneezes, etc. I worked with 2 other teachers so that 13 math classes a day were involved in the contest. This means 26 ribbons a day for 3 days. There were very few duplicate students from day to day so everyone felt they still had a chance to win a ribbon. Some questions were quite easy and some very, very difficult and tricky. I can't wait to use these 2 books again next year.

Ok...what can you say, the questions in here are downright gross! However, the students LOVE solving them. While many are lower level (below 7th grade), the basic applications are there that are appropriate to middle school.

My students love these and they make good starter or exit questions.

I teach math for a living and bought this book with high hopes. But, I found its questions to be less innovative than work I had already produced on my own. Slightly and occasionally "gross", in a student sense, as an attempt to be engaging, you can probably create more intersting problems on your own just by reading the newspapers and applying a bit of immagination. Just extrapolate any story to the absurd or ask the class clown to gross you out based on the news item.

Basically, it did not live up to the hype and is far too expensive for few problems you do get. Spend your money buying your local paper.