Math Curse

Author: Jon Scieszka

Publisher/Date: Viking, 1995

ISBN: 0-670-86194-4

Grade Levels Recommended for Use: 6-12

Brief Summary: When the teacher tells her class that they can think of almost everything as a math problem one student acquires a math anxiety which then becomes a real curse.

Topics: permutations, problem solving, timeline, average, sequence, percent, vocabulary, volume

Suggested Activities:

NUMBER PROBLEMS AND STORIES: have students work in groups to solve each problem below.

1. The following number sequence is called the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, ...What is the next number in the sequence? How do you know? (Each new number is obtained by adding the previous two numbers: 1+1=2, 1+2=3, 2+3=5, 3+ 5=8, 5+8=13, 8+13=21)

2. It takes about 5 seconds for the sound of thunder to travel one mile. About how long would it take the sound of thunder to travel two miles? About how long would it take the sound of thunder to travel five miles? About how far can the sound of thunder travel in one minute? About how far can the sound of thunder travel in ½ minute?

3. People dream an average of five times a night. At that average, about how many dreams might you have tonight? About how many dreams would you have had last night and the night before? About how many dreams might you have had since Tuesday? About how many dreams do you have in one week? About how many dreams might our whole class have on some Tuesday night? About how many dreams might you have in one month? In a year?

4. Each toilet flush uses about seven gallons of water. About how many gallons of water do two toilet flushes use? Three flushes? About how many pints (oler tanks use 3-5 gallons) of water does each flush us? How many times would we need to flush a toilet to use about 1.5 pints of water? If there are four people in my family and each person flushes the toilet three times a day, about how many gallons of water are used?

5. About half a person's weight is water in the cells of the body. About how much of a person's weight is not water? Kim weighs 60 pounds. About how much does the water in his body weigh? Lisa weighs 50 pounds. About how much does the water in her body weigh? About what percent of a person's weight is water? About what percent of a person's weight is not water?

6. At room temperature, it takes a scoop of ice cream about 15 minutes to melt. What does "room temperature" mean? If the room temperature is 80'F (about 26'C), will it take more or less than 15 minutes for a scoop of ice cream to melt? If the room temperature is about 60'F (about 15'C), will it take more or less than 15 minutes for a scoop of ice cream to melt? About how long would it take 2 scoops of ice cream at room temperature to melt? (just over 15 minutes: it would not take twice as long just because there are 2 scoops)

HORRORS: have students compile a list of horrors like those encountered in The Math Curse. Then they can create their own book of horrors.

WRITING MATH STORIES: each student will use math manipulatives to write and solve math problems of their own or the math problems in the story Math Curse.

MATHEMATICAL TERMS: for each math situation represented in the book Math Curse, the students will find the mathematical term used to describe the situation. Some of these will be easy others will be rather difficult. This can be individually done or in a small group.

VOLUME: before reading the book have students begin collecting milk jugs and other containers that have volume. Make sure each of your groups has a variety of containers. Perform experiments to determine how many of a certain unit is in another unit.

TIMELINE: have students make a timeline of their morning routine in 5-minute intervals. Once they all have a timeline pair them up and let them compare to see who spends more time on each part of the routine and see if they can come up with ways to speed up their routine to be ready sooner in the morning. They can also determine what percentage of time they spend doing each activity.

BUILDING TOUR: take a small tour around the hall or the building. When the students are out they need to identify threequestions they have that would require math to answer them. When you are back in the room have them get in small groups and answer the question or find out how to answer the question if it is really complex.

ARRANGEMENTS: in small groups all the students need to identify all the different ways the class could be arranged. For example if there are 28 students, they can be seated in four rows of seven.

NON-MATHEMATICAL: the hardest challenge of them all, have the students try to figure out one thing in their lives that isn't in some way directly related to math or indirectly related. Everything in our world is mathematical.