The Math Curse

The Math Curse

Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

“You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.” Yes, I suppose you can…But what if you don’t like Math? What if you REALLY don’t like Math? That is the main problem in this book. This child (who remains nameless but could easily be named Michaelanne) thinks she has been placed under a Math Curse! Her teacher explained to she and her classmates that nearly everything can be seen as a math problem.

This book talks about telling time, which is taught in 1^st and 2^nd grades, using standards MCC1.MD.3 Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks and MCC2.MD.7 Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.

There are LOTS of word problems used in this book.

One page has lots of measurement problems and this page would fall under standard MCC2.MD.9 Generate measurement data by measuring lengths of several objects to the nearest whole unit, or by making repeated measurements of the same object. Show the measurements by making a line plot, where the horizontal scale is marked off in whole number units.

There are several places in the book where it talks about interpreting data in graphs, which coordinates with standard MCC2.MD.10. Draw a picture graph and a bar graph (with single-unit scale) to represent a data set with up to four categories. Solve simple put-together, take-apart, and compare problems using information presented in a bar graph.

The book talks about fractions, which is standard MCC3.NF.1 Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.

The book also integrates social studies, by talking about the Mississippi River as well as several different counting strategies.

The math curse is finally broken, only to be replaced with a science curse…

This book could be used with children of nearly all ages 2^nd grade and up. We would use it in our classroom as a read aloud activity, and then go over the vocabulary terms that are new. We would use our inference skills to have students predict what kind of problems the science curse would involve. We could then have the students work in pairs to come up with all of the problems they can think of and then switch papers with a new group and answer the questions on their new paper.