Summer school starts today! I will once again be teaching preservice teachers HOW to teach math. While elementary math is certainly composed of more than this, numbers and number sense are a huge part of what is taught. I generally open this class by sharing some mathematically-inclined poems, including Sandburg's "Arithmetic" (I actually show a video ), Numbers by Mary Cornish, "Take a Number" by Mary O'Neill, and this little gem by Patricia Hubbell.
EquationsAs you can see, I've been thinking a lot about math lately and think it's high time we write about it. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
by Patricia Hubbell
Pi r squared is forty-two,
Diameter is three,
Two and two add up to four,
(Do you love me?)
X and Y equations,
Add the number two,
Twelve and twelve are twenty-four,
(I love you.)
Poem ©Pat Hubbell . All rights reserved.
The thought of writing a poem about math gives me the hives. . .but I know my friend, Ann Whitford Paul's books, Seasons Sewn, and Eight Hands Round, have been used extensively in schools to teach math.
ReplyDeleteCAT'S TWELVE TAILS
ReplyDeleteBy Steven Withrow
One she wore on Sunday mornings
strolling with a friend.
Two she took on pleasant outings
by the river bend.
Three she kept for secret errands
prowling in the dark.
Four she hid beneath a bush
beside the city park.
Five she dressed in scarlet ribbons
meant to catch the eye
Of chickadee or meadow mouse
or bashful butterfly.
Six she bought on market day
and paid a level price.
Seven tagged along behind
against her own advice.
Eight she gambled and she lost
in midnight games of chance.
Nine she broke while practicing
a whirling-dervish dance.
Ten she groomed to gleaming black
until her tongue turned red.
Eleven she abandoned
for a buttered crust of bread.
Twelve she had inherited
at birth with regal pride.
She curled it close upon her breast
and wore it when she died.
Copyright 2010 Steven Withrow. All rights reserved
Four Leaf Clover
ReplyDeleteWe hunted on our knees in clover
running our fingers through grass
trying to find four leaves
in a green sea of threes.
My little sister turned her back
took two clovers
ripped one leaf from each
twisted both stems together
and called, “Look I found one!”
I used to do that
so I almost told her it wasn’t real
not a real lucky clover.
But then
I remembered how Grandpa says
"You make your own luck."
I gave my little sister a thumbs up
and she smiled.
© Amy LV
Proper Fractions
ReplyDeleteWhole numbers endlessly march up the line,
their long journey never is done.
But fractions stay home to slice up the space
that lies between 0 and 1.
The whole numbers always add units:
plus one and plus one and plus one.
The fractions divide it, then use only part,
for some reason, they think that's fun.
A fraction may cut up the unit
like a pizza into six, eight, or four.
Still, the work's microscopic: a fraction can cut
that one into a billion or more.
The fractions look sadly restricted,
as they slice and re-slice the same space.
Yet they can divide it in infinite ways,
though the fractions seem stuck in one place.
Oh, the whole numbers grab our attention
with their soldierly march up the line.
But there in the space between 0 and 1
the fraction world plays with design.
--Kate Coombs, 2010, all rights reserved
For the past two days all I could think of was, She wants me to write a math poem? I don't do math! Then, just this afternoon I thought, Hey, wait, I've been writing fingerplays for years! (I'm a former children's librarian.)
ReplyDeleteSo, I wrote a fingerplay (also known as a counting rhyme--duh!):
UNDER THE APPLE TREE
One little bee seeing an apple under a tree,
flew back to the hive as quickly as could be.
Two curious bees seeing the first bee's dance,
flew away from the hive at the very first chance.
They scouted around, then flew back home,
alerting three more at the honeycomb.
Four hungry bees who just couldn't wait,
flew off to the apple tree and ate and ate.
They ate and ate and ate some more,
and the last five bees got nothing but the core.
Diane Mayr, all rights reserved.
MATH JUNGLE
ReplyDeleteThe number pathways
in my brain
are grown over
with words
Mental machete’s
what I need
to clear the nouns
and verbs
And make again
a traffic trail
for all those
integers
© 2010 by Violet Nesdoly (all rights reserved)
It has been a long time...I fear Tricia must check my math!
ReplyDeleteNumber Facts
By Liz Korba
IMAGINARY numbers!
Do they vanish in thin air?
My teacher says in sixth grade math -
“Just know that they are there.”
I did a little Google search -
According to one text
REAL numbers and IMAGINED ones
Create what’s called COMPLEX.
IRRATIONALS struck me this way
Since they’re so very long,
But they’re still REAL though they won’t stop
(I’m shocked that I was wrong.)
The NATURALS I understand -
To order and to count.
And NEGATIVES make sense to me –
Alas, my bank account!
The INTEGERS are NEGATIVES
And NATURALS with “OH”
A most important number
They discovered long ago.
Its other name is ZERO
Somehow EVEN – with no leaning
POSITIVE or NEGATIVE,
Divide with – there’s “no meaning.”
Which leads me to the “number”
That I read about today
It’s NaN – that’s “NOT A NUMBER”
And it’s quiet – so they say.
Ten digits should be simple
(Though INFINITY’s a lot.)
I fear I don’t KNOW numbers
Be that RATIONAL or not.