The Grapes of Math

The Grapes of Math

Bibliographic Information

      Tang, Greg. The Grapes of Math. New York: Scholastic Inc., 2001.

      Description

Fun, bright pictures paired with riddles, make math fun. Grapes of Math teaches kids creative ways to solve math problems. Instead of just counting items, kids are encouraged to group them together for easier addition and eventually multiplication.  There are sixteen math riddles followed by an answer section that explains this ‘new’ way of looking at a math problem.

Quantitative Reading Level

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 2.2

Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease: 98.8

ATOS Level: 4.4

Qualitative Reading Level

Purpose: Low. Explicitly stated.

Structure: Low. Organization is simple, obvious separation of each math problems. Text features and graphics are essential in understanding problems. Children’s books are the exception because they rely heavily on text features and graphics, therefore the structure is still low.

Language: Low. The language used is contemporary and conversational. The problems are clear and mostly explicit and easy-to-understand.  The hint is usually more implicit.

Knowledge Demands: Middle High. text requires moderate knowledge of discipline-specific content knowledge. There are no references to other texts.

Content Area

Math: Elementary

Subject Area Tag

Math, Weekly Requirement

Content Area Standard

Mathematics: Standards for Mathematical Practice

1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.

2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively.

3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.

4. Model with mathematics.

5. Use appropriate tools strategically.

6. Attend to precision.

7. Look for and make use of structure.

8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning.

Curriculum Suggestions

• Use separate problems in the book as worksheets during class
• Have students write their own math problems

Links to Supporting Digital Content

Author website

http://gregtangmath.com/Books/Books?bookID=grapes

Optional:

The solutions in this book are in line with the ‘new’ common core math, even though this was written in 2001. I have to say, I had difficulty with these problems. Although I could solve them easily, the way I counted the items were nothing like the solution in the answer section. I think this is why parents are so against the new common core math; it just doesn’t make sense to us. 

*photo obtained from Goodreads