Sunday, July 14, 2013

Tiger Math: Learning to Graph from a Baby Tiger


Collaboration Cuties Must Read Mentor Text Linky time--this week's topic: MATH...

Just the other day, my grandson and I stopped to pick up a few things in my classroom.  His eyes were caught by a book on the top of a basket because we had just played our "Guess that Animal" game in the car on the way there.  The cover had a baby tiger on it--our most recent animal...  I looked at the basket and saw that it was in the Teaching Stories: Math basket, and that made me think about how few times the kids even got into that basket last year, and then I got ti thinking about how I want to add some math texts to guided math time this year. 

I remembered briefly using the book that my grandson spotted, Tiger Math: Learning to Graph from a Baby Tiger by Ann Whitehead Nagda & Cindy Bickel, when I taught fifth grade.  I have not used the text with second graders, but it will be a great text to use with enriched second grade math students for an independent exploration. The text steps beyond second grade math standards a bit by showing double bar, line graphs, and a simple pie/circle graph--yet this will provide a perfect extension for some students. The text shows real-life uses of different types of graphs, and it gives a wonderful nonfiction account of a baby tiger as it grows and changes.   


About the Book form amazon.com: A Siberian tiger cub born at the Denver Zoo is orphaned when he is just a few weeks old. At first T. J. refuses to eat his new food, and it requires the full attention of the zoo staff to ensure that he grows into a huge, beautiful, and very healthy tiger.  Through photographs, narrative, and graphs, young readers follow T.J. as he grows from a tiny newborn into a five-hundred-pound adult. A heartwarming story about one tiger’s fight for survival that also introduces a basic math skill.

Here are just two of the graph pages from the book.  You can also see a nice preview at amazon.com!



I plan to create a general response sheet that can be used with any of the graphs in the book.  Here are some of the questions I will ask...
  • What type of graph is shown?
  • What is the title of the graph?
  • What is the subject of this graph? What information about the baby tiger (or tigers) is it showing you?
  • Write two things you learned from reading the graph. 
  • What "I wonder..." questions do you have?


Ann Whitehead Nagda has a website where you can learn about her 4 other non-fiction math teaching texts that she has written.  I will be ordering Panda Math: Learning About Subtraction from Hua Mei and Mei Sheng.


Fly on over to Collaboration Cuties to read about more math mentor texts...  See you tomorrow for Monday Made It!


5 comments:

  1. This is a way cool book!! :) I wish we taught graphing in 4th, I would totally jump on this one!
    Jivey
    ideas by jivey
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  2. I have this book but haven't used it yet. I need to pull it out and check on it. I'm so glad you linked it up!

    Amanda
    Collaboration Cuties

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  3. What a great book recommendation! I would've loved using this last year if I'd known about it. I'm your newest follower - come stop by if you get a chance :)

    Lauren
    The Sweetest Thing
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  4. Anne Nagda came to my school years ago for a writing residency. She was great with the kids. At the time, we had a cat that lived at school (Sooty). Anne loved this idea and ended up writing "The Valentine Cat" inspired by our school and our kitty! We even did a 'paw signing' when the book was released!

    Her math books are great, but I recommend also reading her fiction chapter books. The kids love them as well.

    Anne is good people!

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