1. The "unit" is a dinosaur. Specifically, a seismosaurus. Kids need to understand that a "unit" can be flexible. In this book, everything is measured in terms of a dinosaur unit.
2. The book depicts increasingly smaller measurements. If a dinosaur is worth 1, then a dinosaur shrunk to 1/10 will fit in the front yard. It talks about various other tenths, like a dime being a tenth of a dollar. It shows both decimals and the fraction equivalent.
3. The numbers creatively get smaller, each time decreasing by powers of ten. For example... 1/10,000 is an ant. 1/1,000,000 is an amoeba. Some kids will be very intrigued by the exponents, which are also included.
4. The book is big (13 x 8") and good with crowds.
If you teach decimals or fractions, I recommend it!
I read both books (this one and Big Numbers) with my 5 year old, and even though she couldn't really appreciate the details, she loved the graphics. It's a nice first intro to the world of small numbers and decimals.
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds wonderful! I really need concrete visual representations of math concepts this year. Thanks for the recommendation.
ReplyDeleteKim
Finding JOY in 6th Grade
I have both of these books and I love them! I actually read them to my middle schoolers when we were learning about scientific notation!
ReplyDelete☼Kate
To The Square Inch