How Math Applies to Everyday Life.
This week I am concentrating on back to school books, what better time to buy some new reading material than the start of the school year. No matter the age of your child, books are a great back to school gift.
I am doing reviews of mostly educational books, but all are fun and engaging, and Why Pi is a great example of that.
We are taken back in time to the very beginning of math and the use of measurements. Children are introduced to the world of mathmagicians and how through time people have used math to make sense of the world around them.
Topics covered start with a section on the Ancient World. which include moons and months, pi, night and day, and seasons.
The Age of Discovery concentrates on Galileo, gravity, longitude and mapping.
Modern Measuring is the last segment and gives us the basics on everything one could imagine, hot/cold. electricity, sound, the metric system and more than I can type out here.
The book is done in such a fun way that kids don’t even register that they are “learning” so many important things while reading it.
For more information on this book and others, you can visit DK Books at http://www.dk.com, and click the flag to choose your country.
Reading level: 7 – 10 years
Page Count: 96 pages
Publisher: DK Publishing
Publisher’s synopsis: This entertaining follow-up to DK’s popular Go Figure!, Why Pi? presents even more mind-bending ways to think about numbers. This time, author Johnny Ball focuses on how people have used numbers to measure things through the ages, from the ways the ancient Egyptians measured the pyramids to how modern scientists measure time and space.
About the Author: Johnny Ball has hosted more than 20 UK children’s television series about math and science. He is known for making math not just easy to understand, but genuinely fun and fascinating. His shows and videos earned him a New York international EMMY nomination, a BAFTA, and 10 other awards. He has written five children’s books, including DK’s Go Figure!, and an educational musical. His academic credentials include three honorary science doctorates and fellowship of the British Mathematical Association.