Math Potatoes: Mind Stretching Brain Food

What a cool book. I greatly dislike math and all of it's confusion, however math poetry? Where was this 15 years ago when math was NO fun to me!? Math Potatoes was created by Greg Tang, a Harvard graduate and an NYU graduate of Mathematics Education, ans he believes deeply in problem solving to keep our brains healthy. Each page was so creatively written, either hiding math messages in lines of poetry, or actively telling to seek out math elements within the  Harry Brigg's illustrations. I stole this book from my Mom's classroom library, which tells me that it's actually Kindergarten safe, however it may be more geared for student ages 6-10. Greg Tang has created a Math series for all age levels, and at some point I would like to collect all of his books.

This book could be used for kids who struggle with math, yet seem to be stronger in reading and writing. Word problems are usually this kind of kid's best friend when it comes to math, and the numbers not always making sense in conjunction with the words that do fit the bill seem to be a helpful way to ease math into math-phobic students. As a pre-lesson, I would have students flip through the pages and find one puzzle to solve individually. In a small group, students could then check each other's answers in the back of the book to see how they did with the puzzle. If they didn't solve the problem correctly, the corrector could help show the student how to solve the problem. As a post-activity, the students could create their own math poem, creating a question within their riddle. This book definitely made math more fun, and I'm still mad that I didn't know about this book sooner!