Customer Reviews

Math For All Seasons: Mind-Stretching Math Riddles (Scholastic Bookshelf)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Greg Tang and partner, Harry Briggs are back with another innovative, seasonal counting book that's ready to challenge younger readers. Each clever problem, posed as a riddle, and told in engaging rhyme is enhanced with bold and vibrant, eye-catching, computer-generated illustrations. No more counting the old fashioned, slow way, one by one. Tang and Briggs help kids think creatively by looking for patterns and recognizing groupings. Little ones will feel a real sense of accomplishment as they begin to develop the problem solving skills and tactics they'll use for the rest of their lives. With a helpful hint included at the end of each rhyme to get you started, and a straighforward, easy to understand answer key at the end, youngsters 4-8 won't even know they're working on math problems. They'll just think they're just having fun! For those with older kids, be sure to get this dynmaic duo's first book of mind-stretchers, The Grapes Of Math.

This lovely story book is filled with beautiful illustrations and rhyming poetry. Each poem gives a clue to a mystery; the math problem illustrated on the facing page. This book deals mostly with addition and subtraction, making it a useful book for kindergarten and 1st grade level children.

Once my 6 1/2 year old daughter understood how she was to figure out the math problem she began to really enjoy finding the correct answer. Just having to figure out the problem creatively was good for her. She's having a hard time in math, and so I have been looking for fun ways to help her with the subject. This book is the best one I've found so far. But now we've finished all the problems, and therein lies the problem.

Once your child has solved the mysteries there really is no reason to continue reading the book. It's hardcover and presented as a storybook - a creative solution to all the boring math workbooks out ther and the endless repetition of math equations that children find so dull. But gosh I wish it was longer or that it was a workbook. Being able to draw on the pages would really have helped my daughter figure out the problems.

Like the other reviewers I highly recommend this book. The quality is high, the illustrations are cute and the poetry lovely. But plan on giving it to friends, a local library, or your child's school after your child has solved all the problems.

This is a beautiful book, an important factor to consider when attempting to interest a child in working with numbers in general and solving equations in particular. The illustrations are eye-catching, the colours are bright, the paper is thick and glossy, and the book is a nice size for parent and child to read together at bedtime. My child has no interest in math, and I found that appealling to her more imaginative side as this book does sparked her curiosity. The method the author has used to pique children's interest in solving basic mathematical problems is creative and engaging.
The reason I have given this book 4 stars rather than 5 is that after going through the book twice or three times and, more importantly, solving the problems, the book no longer held my child's interest. It has been sitting on the shelf untouched for months.

I have been waiting for any books from this series. This one is another wonderful, innovative counting book that's ready to challenge children who just start their math thinking. Each thoughtfully designed problem, posed as a riddle, and told in engaging rhyme is presented together with eye-catching and mind-stretching illustrations. No more boredom in counting the old way. The authors help kids think creatively by looking for patterns, relations and recognizing groupings. Young children will feel a real sense of accomplishment as they begin to develop the problem solving skills and tactics they'll use for the rest of their lives. With a helpful hint at the end of each rhyme to perk up the interest, and a straight forward, easy to understand answer key at the end, many kids don't even know they're working on math problems. They're just having fun!

This book is particularly useful for gifted and talented children, who are ready to learn math very early. It instills natural and intuitive math thinking without the requirement of a formal textbook learning. When later on I do need a more formal and systematic math for my gifted child, we use Beestar online GT programs at beestar.org. Similar to this book, they are innovative and thoughtful.

Overall, this book is as good as I have hoped. Highly recommend.

This is a great book for introducing a gifted child to using patterns to quickly solve math problems. The riddles guide you to the author's solution. However, another valuable lesson is that there are many ways to solve a math problem.

I gave this book to my gifted five year old son the summer before he began first grade. He loved the rhymes and the pictures. He especially liked finding clever ways to count the objects without counting one by one. We made a family game of solving each riddle, working to see who would solve it first. Then we shared our strategies and reviewed the author's strategy which is presented in the back of the book.

I highly recommend this book! It provides opportunities for great mental math practice. Gifted children love patterns. This book builds on that and helps them to see additional ways in which finding patterns could be useful.

I just went through this book with my six year old son and he absolutely loved it! It shows different ways to think of counting objects by grouping them in easy multiples. I think it's a wonderful opportunity for kids to learn that there are many ways to solve a math problem, too. My son enjoyed explaining 'his way' and hearing 'my way'. It's a great book for early number sense (mental math) and has beautiful illustrations, too.

I'm a very mathematically minded person... I loved working with math with my students and I always looked for new and interesting resources to introduce to my classroom. Math really permeated my practice, I tried to connect math to everything they were working on. My classroom was filled with mathematicians who explored math concepts through building, drawing, through music, etc. (along with text-book lessons).

I had hoped this would be a great book to add to my classroom--a great connection between literacy and mathematics.

I was ultimately disappointed in the quality of both the mathematics and the language used. It didn't inspire explorations into mathematics or into the language of riddles.

I guess I was just hoping for more.

The book is pretty and all and teaches good tactics, but should be targeted to 5 or 6 year olds. My 7 year old was bored and went through the whole book in 10 minutes. She is a very good math student. She might have enjoyed it at age 5 but not now. Learning about sets starts in kindergarten.

Very timely shipment and the book was in condition as stated. I will definitely be buying from this person again. Thank you

Greg Tang's are the only math books that my preschooler and young elementary student pick up on their own to look at. The puzzles are fun, and the lively illustrations are engaging.

If your children are already familiar with Math Appeal, please note that the exercizes in this book are significantly easier that the exercizes in that book. Most of the grouping in this book is done by 5's or 10's, rather than the 7's and 11's that are often used in Math Appeal. This makes it easier for younger kids to count by groups, rather than just straight counting.