Penrose Math books

[lulalu]

What age are these books good for? 

DS is 8yo and loves math. He has worked through most of Miquon and Gattegno book 1 and part of 2. 

How have you used this series? Just read through them? Do activities with them? 

[lulalu]

Or is there a better math book series to start with? Any others your children have loved and read again and again? 

[PoisonHemlock]

I can't speak for Penrose, but my son enjoyed the Murderous Math books that we got from the library. I believe they are from the same company that does Horrible History, but it could just be that they feel the same. He also liked the old book, Number Stories from Long Ago, and that is free in the public domain (Google Books, I think). 

[Lucy the Valiant]

We LOVE Penrose!

Our family has a short attention span in general, so we work steadily through the "regular" math books, and when we finish a couple of units, we "do fun math" for a week or so. "Fun math" in our house is Penrose, Sir Cumference, Khan Academy (any math that's higher than your actual grade level), math-ish games like Farkle and Yahtzee, MindBenders math, Tan-gram and Tapatan and Blokus - anything math-ish. After a week, we return to our regularly progressing books. (It's not for everyone but has worked well for us for a decade or so. 😉 )

 

Editing to add: How to tell if he's ready? Buy the book, show it to him, and if he loves it, he's ready. 😉 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Lucy the Valiant

[PeterPan]

On March 15, 2020 at 8:52 AM, lulalu said:

Or is there a better math book series to start with? Any others your children have loved and read again and again? 

There's a whole genre of math mysteries. They're little paperbacks, so just search on amazon and they'll pop up. Then in the curriculum section there's stuff like 

https://www.mardel.com/Education/SC917540-40-FABULOUS-MATH-MYSTERIES/p/3799749

I'm using that one right now with ds and it's very fun! Not too hard, not too easy. Just fun. 

This other series popped up http://teacher.scholastic.com/maven/  not sure about it, might be fun. I'm guessing there are more books like this from Scholastic. 

Zaccaro has his Primary Challenge Math series. My dd wasn't into it and I've never tried it with my ds, but some kids really like it.

https://www.amazon.com/Singapore-Challenge-Grades-Schaffer-Publications/dp/1623990742  Picked up this at the library and it may be a good level for your dc. Kind of intriguing.

https://artofproblemsolving.com/store/list/beast-academy  Look at their new *puzzles* books. 

In your other thread you were looking for real world. I've used many books in this series with ds, started maybe a year ago so maybe about the level your ds is. They're very charming, context driven. https://www.amazon.com/Graphing-Pets-Real-World-Math/dp/1429666188  Unfortunately, they'd be $$$ to buy on your own. If your library system is open, request everything you can find in the series. They have text, an activity, more text followed by activity. So usually it was like 5-6 of those sessions, iirc, basically a week ish of interaction. And the concepts would build and culminate in a really nice mini project, something with multiple steps. I wouldn't pay a ton, but they're very nice books, yes.

Have you thought about getting him a more interesting calculator? This isn't the one I have, but looking at it I like it so much I wish I did! LOL I may buy it. This puppy has multiple lines, will let him enter fractions, and I assume he can do some things with operations.                                             Casio fx-55 PLUS Elementary/Middle School Fraction Calculator                                       The one I have is a casio middle school calculator, and it has some things ds doesn't need (trig) which sort of clutter it. But definitely give him that chance to explore, kwim? Calculator play is AWESOME. You can let him try a graphing calculator if you have one around or a graphing app that you download for free.

Similarly, you can make data for anything you guys dream up and then graph it with tech. Most tech will convert data between types of graphs, so it's just way cool to explore this. Then you can make up anything. He can poll your FB friends, haha, to get data. Have fun with it.

Not sure if this is the right level or too high, but Didax has SO much fun stuff                                             Dice Activities for Mathematical Thinking                                       They have another for algebraic thinking. They have a book on fractions I really enjoyed doing with my ds. I'm not sure if it was didax or another publisher. It's downstairs and I could go look. I'm being lazy, maybe later, lol. 

Main point is, start looking at things labeled gr4-8 or 5-8 and you'll probably find some pretty cool stuff that is appropriate for a bright, younger dc. Anything that is in an area of strength he may do earlier. My ds excels at spatial, so I can bring those things in earlier.

I find a lot of cool things at LakeShore Learning. They have their own line of stuff and other publishers. https://www.lakeshorelearning.com  I just started a chain reaction set from them that is good. K'nex has math kits and science that are TERRIFIC. Anybody who is that strong at math is probably going to do the conceptual of your physics activities pretty well. 

Also consider linguistics. Have you done the Hobbit yet? There are activities where you explore the writing from the fronticepiece of the Hobbit. It was all invented by Tolkien. Anything with languages, invented languages, and coding will be a natural with a mathematically gifted dc.

Consider exploring fractal math. It's something you can do with videos, but also there are activities if you google. It's just a crazy cool topic. I picked up a book of Paper Plate Geometry once.

See what the Mo Mathematics Museum in NY is doing and selling. You can get on their FB and get all kinds of ideas. National Museum of Mathematicsmomath.org  They have videos, et

Don't forget card games. I haven't taught my ds poker (mainly because I don't know it, lol), but anything in that vein with cards, probability, etc. may interest him. Cribbage, etc. tend to have a math component that might be the right level of challenge for him and allow him to interact with adults. My dad was in the Navy, so he always played a lot of cribbage with us when he'd come home.

Well that's a start. If you want a laugh, my ds has SLD math but is considered math gifted. So I actually do more with him than I did with his dd. It's just that we can't do it so aggressively or arduously. We'll do something for 15-20 minutes and really THINK rather than doing a page of computation. 

[lulalu]

Thanks for the list PeterPan! 

[Sarah0000]

Sometimes we read Penrose together, sometimes my 8yo will do it solo. Penrose doesn't get picked up as often as the Sir Cumference, Pythagoras, and other math storybooks. My 8yo is now doing Zaccaro Upper Elementary Math which isn't a storybook but it has interesting problems. For instance, the first lesson was about figuring out body weight on different planets. The Lower Elementary Math book seems a little more forced, like standard word problems, but I haven't been through both so that may just be a first impression.