How does that even fit in? The book "2 x 2 = Boo!: A Set of Spooky Multiplication Stories" by Loreen Leery is a fun, creepy book about multiplication. Think a book about multiplication sounds a little boring? Wrong. Students and teachers alike will love the mini-stories within the book, each teaching about different multiplication factors. Like the black cat here, it helps students enjoy multiplication, boosts their confidence, and gives them ways to remember multiplication facts through entertaining stories. For example, there is one story with witches who cast magic spells using the factor 0 and making people or things disappear altogether. When three angry snakes were chasing the witch, she yells "3x0=0!" and the three snakes disappear. Another story is about a skeleton chef who has to use a recipe for one serving and multiply each ingredient by five to have enough food for all the guests coming to dinner. The recipe calls for 4 smelly toes, so he says "4x5=20. Twenty toes." There is a chapter for factors 0 through 5 with silly, spooky stories such as these ones.
What we love about this book is that there are so many fun ways to use this book in the classroom. We found multiple lessons already created by teachers (linked below). Using the standard MCC.3.OA.1 (interpret products of whole numbers, e.g. interpret 5 x 7 as a whole number of objects in 5 groups of 7 objects each), this book teaches six different multiplication factors and their properties, or in laymen's terms, it allows us to kill six birds with one stone! It would be perfect to introduce the factors 0 through 5, or to use as a review of those factors. Of course, the book could be used as a Halloween-themed read aloud during a math lesson.
We came up with a couple different activities to do in conjunction with this book. Since the format of the book is comic strip style, students could mimic the comic strip style making their own multiplication stories (maybe with one of the factors 6 through 12). Another useful activity would be creating recipe cards to give to small groups of 5 or 6; the groups have the "ingredients" and have to multiply the recipe by the number of students in their group for the final product (see what we did there? ;) ). The ingredients would be yucky things like witch nails (candy corn), skeleton bones (pretzels), ghost poop (marshmallows), or cat whiskers (licorice). Students would get a kick out of these activities!Here are links to previously-created activities using this book:
http://www.loreenleedy.com/books/2x2boo.html
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/FREE-Book-Activity-for-2-X-2-BOO-A-Set-of-Spooky-Multiplication-Stories-902465
Also, the author has an awesome Pinterest board with tons of great resources! We highly recommend you check it out! You will fall in love (like we did) and you will probably start following all of her boards (also like we did!).
http://www.pinterest.com/loreenleedy/
Our book was also about cats and I enjoyed it because I am a cat lover and I believe children who read about things they love, they will enjoy the book. It will make the multiplication so much more fun. This book would also be good to use near Halloween, because of the ghosts, black cats and pumpkins. The students will be able to enjoy the learning the facts, with all the extra fun things going on.
ReplyDelete~Olivia
I agree with Olivia! This book would be good to use near Halloween. I like the fact that this book teaches six different multiplication factors in one book. I think children would find this story enjoyable because of the humor in the story such as when the witch made the three angry snakes disappear by using the factor 0. This book sounds fun and enjoyable for students. I would love to read this book to a class one day!----Shakiyla Radney
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ReplyDeleteI remember when I was a student, I did not like multiplication either. I feel like this is a good book for kids to be encouraged to want to learn about their multiplication tables. Halloween and spooky things can be fun as well. I would love to use this book in my class someday as well.
ReplyDelete---- Jennifer Novak
I like that your cat picture is saying "I'm not afraid of math!" I think that that would be a cute poster to have up in your classroom. This book seems like it is very engaging and will keep students wanting to learn! I love the website ya'll posted with lesson plans and activities to go along with this book!
ReplyDeleteI really want to get this book now. Your blog has made me really interested and it seems like a great book for students to view math in a new way. I loved the links and pinterest is one of my favorite places to look for educational lessons and activities. Great job girls. :)
ReplyDeleteI love that this book is Halloween themed! Children always love that holiday because of the candy and parties, well why not have them love it because of a multiplication book? I think reading this to a class who are just starting on a multiplication unit would enjoy it. And maybe it would make it easier for them to remember their multiplications' table!
ReplyDeleteI also checked out the author's pinterest page, and I love all of the activities that I saw. I can't wait to try some of them out in the future!
~Jenni
I love that there is a good, engaging book about multiplication. I know that I was not a fan of multiplication growing up and I think that this book would have helped get me interested. Although, the one draw back is that it is Halloween-themed. You don't know exactly when you'll be going over multiplication. So I would hate to find a great book and know you could only use it for a certain time period. (PS I love that you included the Pinterest board)
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