Integrating children's literature into math instruction offers a myriad of benefits for supporting learning objectives. Well-crafted stories provides relatable contexts that make abstract mathematical concepts more accessible, aiding comprehension and retention. By incorporating characters and scenarios from children's literature, educators can create real-world connections that enhance understanding of mathematical principles.
The book “Sir Cumference and the Off-The-Charts Dessert” by Cindy Neuschwander is relevant to reinforce student understanding of graphically representing a data set because it does an excellent job explaining how the main characters, Pia and Bart, go through their process for collecting votes from the townspeople for their favorite dessert. The bakers, Pia and Bart, each collect votes for their desserts differently, and experience some challenges along the way. This serves as a great visual explanation for how to collect votes, and finding an effective solution to better represent their data, as shown in Bart’s bar chart at left.
In my future classroom, I plan to engage students in hands-on math activities related to children’s literature like “SIr Cumference”. For example, after referring to this slide show, students will likely express excitement over their preferred holiday cookie and begin making a case for why their favorite cookie is the best. This conversation will lead to favorite holiday cookie voting activity. After the vote, students will use the visual aid on slide two for creating a bar graph to represent the data set. Because the x-axis is not provided in slide two, students discuss how to format their bar graph. They’re also provided with the definition of x-axis, y-axis, how to distribute values on the y-axis, and that graphs always need a title.
Connecting math concepts such as representing and interpreting data will be applied by challenging students with the questions below. These questions push them to think critically about why the data set is useful in real-life situations, such as:
How might the data set differ if you were given one vote or five votes each, instead of three votes? What if some students voted, but some didn’t? How would our results change, then? Why then, would it be important to work towards collecting as many votes as possible?
How would information like this be useful to a bakery who was hired to make three cookies for an upcoming “Breakfast with Santa” event?
Can you think of another reason why this information is useful? (I.e. We now know what kind of ingredients to buy at the grocery store.)
Are there any disadvantages to our data set? (I.e. Not enough children participated in the vote, not all favorite cookies are represented, etc.)