Customer Reviews

Math-terpieces: The Art of Problem-Solving

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

 

 

I love this book and have shared it with colleagues! What a great idea to combine math and art, and what a great way to tackle problem solving which is not always a favourite with kids! For teachers, it helps us cover two subject areas at the same time which we greatly appreciate. When I saw the cover of this book, I was instantly intrigued. I liked the fact that it's suitable for all age groups -- older students may appreciate the art history aspect more, but the rhymes appeal to all ages. The illustrations jump out, are appealing and make math more interesting. When I showed this book to some of my students, one instantly said that it was "neat" because everyone came up with a different way of getting the answer yet everyone was right, to which I responded with a delighted smile!

Bravo, Greg Tang has done it once again! This wonderful book is full of authentic masterpieces which Tang recreates to get us looking at the art in a "math kind of way!" This book is super for all elementary levels, kindergarten through grade five. The focus is on addition, and the many ways we can group numbers to get to a given sum. We love it!

Greg Tang encourages his audience to develop number sense in a lively way. With the help of this and his other books, you can encourage your students to develop a more fluid approach to math. I have used many of his books in my classroom, and find it is best to pre-teach his way of combining number sets before reading the book aloud (just a short lesson).

After introducing several of his books last September, I spent the rest of the year listening to students' spontaneous explanations of how 13 is really just two sixes and one more, or 5 + 8 which is really 5 + (5 + 3), but it's easier to see it as (5 + 5) + 3, and so on. When kids catch on to what he is doing with numbers, it is hard to get them to stop...but why would you want to?

I'm so impressed with this book and can't wait to use it with my Special Education class. The pictures in the preview were confusing, but I went ahead and bought a copy based on the good reviews. The concept is as follows: on the left side of each set of pages, there is a picture of a famous piece of art and a riddle, asking the reader to find x combinations that will make y (3 combinations that will make 7, 5 combinations that will make 10... that sort of thing). On the right side are several groups of objects from the artwork-- abstract eyeballs for Picasso, ballet slippers for Degas. The objects are arranged in sets of 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. From the sets available, the reader is able to find multiple combinations of objects to reach the goal number. I'm sure that's not any less confusing that the pictures... but it's really cute and will be great for improving addition skills and overall numerical fluency... well, and cultural exposure, too! I highly recommend this book!

A good introduction to both art and math.

My kid who doesn't usually like to do addition finds it really fun to find the different ways of adding up the various things. We treat it as a number game. Reinforces the point that there are different ways of arriving at the same number which can be taught as

3+4=7
2+5=7
1+6=7
(BORING!)
or you can just do it by addding up pictures. They will learn it all the better, I feel

This was our first book by Greg Tang, and I loved it so much, and can not wait to get my hands on more of his books. My son loves math, and I am always looking for new ways to challenge his thinking about the subject. This book is by far the best I have come across for that type of reading. I love the fact that the author was able to take two subjects, math and art, and intertwine them so that kids are really learning about two things at one time. The rhyming verses that he uses to set up the clues for number groupings is very, very nice as well. It is a great concept book. You will love the art, and you will love the way he gets kids thinking about art through math, and visa versa. It makes math fun for kids. 5 HUGE stars for this book!

My 4 year old LOVES this book. She will often stop me during mid read to clap her hands and tell me how much she loves it. We started out with just getting one way to make each desired number and are working our way closer to getting all of the possible ones. I love how she has gone from random guessing to being able to predict and look for the correct grouping. She is also realizing when she has made a mis-step and needs to try a different combination. Since we now need to keep track of our correct solutions, she is learning more about writing numbers and her first few mathematical symbols. The art is fun too. Thank you Greg Tang!

Before reading the book and playing with it with my kids, I was going to give this a lower review, but despite my dissapointment for having little value teaching about artwork, it's a great book. There is so much math in many masterpieces and it would be amazing to have a book that used different great pieces to illustrate this (for instance, patterns, which is a grade 1/2 math lesson is easily taught using Mondrian). This book does not do this at all, in fact, the artwork is just pretty backdrop to the math learning and grouping. So, I guess my bone to pick is the illusion that the reviews gave that this taught something about art, it doesn't, but it is a neat formula to teach math.

Mathterpieces is a book that combines art and math together. A fun read and some wonderful problems to figure out. The art work isn't too bad to look at either!