Cat and Rat: The Legend of the Chinese Zodiac

September 1, 2021August 19, 2021 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

Cat and Rat and The Cat’s Tale are both about the origin of the Chinese zodiac which was established in a race the Jade Emperor set up. I like the Ed Young version the best, because he is such a great illustrator and his story has more dialogue in it. On the other hand, The Cat’s Tale is in the first person which provides an opportunity to teach point of view.

Pourquoi Stories: How Things Came To Be
The literary name for the stories of how things originated is the French word for “Why” which is “Pourquoi”. This is an example, among several, of stories of how things originated. Students could write their own pourquoi story of how ordinary things in their environment came to be: stop lights, bananas, a park, etc.

Stereotypes of Animals
There are specific stereotypes that are basically agreed to from one culture to the other. A matching activity with qualities on one side and the name of the animal on the other will help reveal to students how widely we agree on these stereotypes. For example:

Owls are …
Pigs are …
Oxen are …
Mules are …

Fair
Here’s an important question in life: What is fair? Is this race fair? Is the Jade Emperor rigging it? What about the actual competing animals—should the Jade Emperor intervene? Is this a good way of deciding priority?

For more creative writing ideas, click Cat and Rat to download.

Nothing Stopped Sophie

August 1, 2019August 7, 2019 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain. Sophie Germain was an 18th century math prodigy who simply refused to accept the assigned roles for a female. Her parents, the schools, the science establishment—nothing stopped her insatiable need to understand and use mathematics. She eventually found the formula that would predict patterns of vibration. We use it today to build bridges, skyscrapers, skytrains, earthquake scenarios…anything that has a structure and can vibrate. In 1816, she became the first woman to win a grand prize from the Royal Academy of Sciences.

Writing to a Pattern

One of the things that holds this story together is the repeated line, “But nothing stopped Sophie.” Ask students to write of something they wanted to do and worked hard to do—it can be as simple as mastering a computer program or a game, riding a bicycle, learning to type, playing an instrument, reading a map…it doesn’t have to be amazing, it just has to be a challenge.

Ask them to set up the scenario of failing at first, then having 3 tries before the final success. At each stage it would be “But nothing stopped (name of student)”.

The French Revolution and Sophie

A great way of remembering lists of things or connections of things is through mnemonics—memory devices. Most students easily remember, “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” because it rhymes. We can remember HOMES as the names of the Great Lakes—Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior—because we can think of them as being in your HOME country,

Well, to remember when the French Revolution was, we need to think of the song, The Marseilles, and then sing,

Louis the Sixteenth was the king of France, in 1789,
He was worth than Louis the fifteenth
He was worse than Louis the fourteenth
He was worse than Lou-o-ie the Thirteenth
He was the worst…da, da, da, da
Since Louie the First.

Why does this matter to this book? It doesn’t, except that Sophie lived in France, during the French Revolution, and it affected how she saw math—as something solid, unchanging, and true in a world that was chaotic.

Continue reading →

Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer

January 1, 2019November 29, 2018 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

The story of how 200 years ago, the daughter of Lord and Lady Byron, Ada Lovelace, wrote the first program—before there was electricity to make it work. Working with Thomas Babbage on the Analytical Engine, she wrote step-by-step how Bernoulli numbers could be coded for the machine.

Author Study

Because Diane Stanley has written at least 16 books about historic characters, now might be a good time to do an author’s study. Begin by gathering as many copies of all 16 of them as you can. For the purposes of an author study that can be done quickly, students should read 3 of them, not counting Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science. That would provide them 4 to consider. Below is a possible outline for their report:

RANK
List them from favourite (#1 ) to least favourite( #4). Summarize each book in a paragraph, with a sentence for each indicating why they are in that position.
DIANE STANLEY’S LIFE
Write 20 sentence facts about Diane Stanley’s life. Check out her biography on her website, Wikipedia, Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, or Simon & Schuster. Include whether you think what she says about herself is reflected in her books.
ART
Check her website’s “art stuff” section for an explanation of how she does her illustrations. She has many styles of art. Of your 4 books, which did she illustrate herself? Which style of art did she use for each? Why do you think so?
ADDITIONAL FACTS ABOUT THE HISTORIC CHARACTER
Take one of the books that has the least number of additional notes about the historic character and research 10 additional interesting facts she does not include. Do they make a difference to how you see the historic figure
HOW MANY WORDS IN HER BOOK
Approximately how many words are in each book. Count 3 of the pages from the middle of the book, total, and divide by 3 to create an average number per page. Multiply that by the number of pages in the book (Usually 32). If you have something interesting to say about a topic you have gathered information on, this is all you need to write to be an author who makes money for your work.

Unrecognized Women Scientists and Inventors

Historically there has been a lack of recognition of the work of women scientists beyond Ada Lovelace. It is often true as well that their work has actually been credited to others. It might make an interesting quick inquiry project for students to select a woman to investigate. What was the discovery or invention? What happened? Is there any pattern in what happened? And any other questions the class as a whole wishes to investigate.

Rosalind Franklin: DNA. The Nobel prize went to Watson and Crick.
Chien-Shiung Wu: Disproved the law of parity. The Nobel prize went to Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yan.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell: Found the first pulsar and Antony Hewish and Martin Ryle got the Nobel prize.
Esther Lederberg: Found a bacterial virus. Her husband and two others got the Nobel prize.
Lisa Meitner: Found that atomic nuclei can split in two and Otto Hawn won the Nobel prize.
Nellie Stevens: Discovered sex is determined by chromosomes. It was credited to Thomas Hunt Morgan.
Margaret Knight: Patented a paper bag machine. The patent was stolen by a man although she won her case in court.
Elizabeth Magie: Invented Monopoly (she patented it as The Landlord’s Game) and Parker Brothers credited it to themselves.
Judy Malloy: Wrote the first hypertext fiction. That “first” was credited to Michael Joyce.
Candace Pert: Found the receptor that allows opiates to lock onto the brain. Dr. Solomon Snyder received an award for it.
Martha Coston: Designed the signal flares for US Naval vessels. Although he had been dead for 10 years, the patent went to her husband Franklin Coston.
Mary Anning: Only now famous as a British finder of fossils. She was unrecognized because of her class and sex.
Marthe Gautier: Discovered the cause of Down’s syndrome. Two men received the credit.
Emmy Noether: Her theorem united two pillars of physics: symmetry in nature and the universal laws of conservation. Her foundational work was used in the textbook by B. L. van der Warden but not mentioned by him until his 7th edition.

Algorithms

Because we we are introducing programming at earlier ages, now might be a good time to explain the concept of an algorithm—an incredibly detailed set of directions to do something . We have “algorithms” in our head to do many automatic tasks such as tying shoes, getting dressed, typing, searching on the Internet, etc.

For a computer, an algorithm can’t miss a single tiny step. To avoid having to develop a part of the code each time, if you need to count something in the game you are designing, you “plug in” the “count this” algorithm, already designed by an earlier programmer.

The Khan Academy has a really good explanation of algorithms at here.

Ask students to write the most detailed algorithm they can for something like borrowing a book from the school library, or riding on public transit, or making the grilled cheese sandwich. Students can suggest other possibilities and they can exchange and “debug” each others algorithms, by pointing out essential, simpler steps that need to be included or errors that would have them frying the sandwich before putting the cheese in.

For 13 creative writing ideas, click Ada Lovelace to download.

King Louie’s Shoes

September 1, 2018September 1, 2018 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

King Louis XIV ruled France (the superpower of its day) for 72 years. He had the biggest army, the biggest palace, the biggest parties and gifts, but, he was short. To compensate, he first commissions the highest throne, then the biggest wig, then the highest heels. Dancing in his new heels, he falls and is embarrassed.

Vocabulary
Partly because England was invaded by the Norman French in 1066, many English words have French origins, and have made their way into everyday use. In this book, baroque and derriere are two of the French words used.

From the letter B, here is a small sample of English words that began as French:

baroque, bachelor, bacon, bailiff, ball (the party not the toy), bandage
banquet, barge, barrette, barricade, base, basil, basket, basset (the hound)
baste (sew), batter, bauble, bayonet, beagle, beast, beautification, beauty
beef, beggar, beige, belfry, benevolent, berate, beret, bestial, beverage,
bias, bigamy, bikini, billiards, billion, binocular, biopsy, biscuit, bison
bistro, bizarre, biscuit, blame, blank, blanket, blemish, blister, block, blouse
boil, boisterous, bomb, bon appetit, butcher, bon voyage, border, botanic
bottle, butler, boulevard, boundary, bouquet, boutique, bowl, buzzard
brace, bracelet, Braille, branch, brave, bribe, brick, browse, brunette
brute, bucket, buccaneer, buffet, bugle, bulge, bullet, bulletin
bureaucracy, burglar, bushel

Several vocabulary activities are possible to play with words:

FRENCH THROUGH THE ALPHABET
Students in teams select 3 letters of the alphabet and find 20 English words that started as French words. Wikipedia has a good list—Google List of English Words of French Origin.
Or, give them a list of countries in the world that have contributed words to English and have them identify 15 loan words and their definitions. One characteristic of English is how flexible it is in adopting words from other languages.
COMPLETE SENTENCES IN FRENCH-ORIGIN WORDS
Challenge students to write the longest totally English sentence, using as many words that began as French words as possible. For example, “The buccaneer berated the butler for boiling bacon for the buffet.” (6 words out of 11) and “The bestial brute (with bayonet drawn) browsed the banquet, barricading the beggar from crossing the boundary to the buffet.”
CATEGORIES OF WORDS FROM FRENCH
Put the words above on individual cards, and ask students create categories for the words as much as possible. For example: words about clothing include baste, bauble, beret, blouse, bracelet, brunette, bikini, and boutique; words about food include: basil, banquet, bacon, biscuit, bistro, bon appetite, butcher, bracelet, buffet, beverage, batter, boil, and beef. Discuss what the categories might mean; for example, the French are famous for good food, so a lot of food words were borrowed.

Roman Numerals

King Louis in this book is actually Louis XIV. This could be an interesting opportunity to introduce students to Roman numerals.

Teaching Roman Numerals below provides a clear and entertaining explanation of how to read the numbers. Plus, it gives the reasons to learn them: to read the titles of royalty, Egyptian dynasties, and the pope; to read the date of issue of movies; to read the titles of many computer games; to read the numbers on analog watches and clocks; Olympic Games (Games of the XXVIII Olympiad; for sections in the introduction to a book (section II); on public buildings and monuments; World War I and World War II; and so on.

For 10 creative writing ideas, click King Louie’s Shoes to download.

The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma

October 1, 2016August 19, 2021 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

The Cat tries to tell the Little Red Riding Hood story while the Dog, who loves superheroes, criticizes, adds his own thoughts, and questions the morality of the story. Lots of fun…very post-modern.

Fairy Tale Poetry or Fairy Tale Slang

Working in pairs, ask students to write rhyming versions of the following list of 14 fairy tales. Just rhyming couplets is fine. It’s much easier for them to do than to write an original story in rhyme because they know the plot already.

Alternatively, the class could brainstorm slang expressions and words and write a slang version of the fairy tale. In either case, the object is to make amusing versions of all 14 of the stories:

The Three Little Pig
Snow White
Cinderella
Beauty and the Beast
The Three Billy Goats Gruff
The Gingerbread Man
The Boy Who Cried Wolf
Jack and the Beanstalk
Little Red Riding Hood
Goldilocks
Rumpelstiltskin
Rapunzel
The Ugly Duckling
Hansel and Gretel

The Favourite Fairy Tale Survey

Design a survey form to allow students to conduct a survey of students in the school to identify the top 3 fairy tales—or to rank them from most to least favourite. For math, students could construct a chart of their results.

For fun, students could carry random copies of each of the fairy tale or slang versions they and their classmates wrote, and give one as a “prize” to each survey participant. To add to the sense of adventure, save some of those miniature Halloween candies. Tell students who can find a partner with the same story to meet at by the front office to “meet the authors”, get their autographs, and receive a prize. Alternative prizes could be a juice bottle, or a free coupon for french fries, or a really cool bookmark.

Teach the students the “manners of conducting a survey”: “May I have a few moments of your time for a simple survey about favourite fairy tales? The results of the survey will be announced over the PA in two days.” Record the results in the correct column. “Thank you very much. Here is a randomly chosen fairy tale for you to read. If you can find someone else who got the same fairy tale, go together to the Principal’s Office and have your versions signed by the authors, and receive a candy prize.”

For 9 creative writing ideas, click The Cat, the Dog, Little Red, the Exploding Eggs, the Wolf, and Grandma to download.

Help Me, Mr. Mutt!

August 1, 2016July 28, 2016 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

Mr. Mutt is the Ann Landers of dogs. Six dogs write in with their problems, and receive answers from Mr. Mutt, along with critiques from The Queen (a cat with a point of view. Answers are accompanied by cute graphs, useful for teaching graphing to students. It also closes with two newspaper articles as the cats attack Mr. Mutt.

Janet Stevens, Harcourt Books, 2008, ISBN 978-0-15-204628-6

We’re Off Exploring

It might be fun in a Social Studies unit for students to write an “Agony Aunt” column for crew members that are with an explorer:

Henry Hudson’s crew
Columbus’ crew
Cartier’s crew
Cabot’s crew, etc.

Students would need to research and incorporate the kinds of typical problems an explorer might encounter, as well an including details for the specific trip of that explorer (where are they, what is happening, the date?). The advice, on the other hand, need not be practical if you wanted to include a humourous element in the writing.

The Queen’s Advice

The Queen comments on Mutt’s advice each time, especially when she feels insulted by his remarks. On the back cover she advertises herself in the newspaper, “Do you have Dog Problems? Write to The Queen, the expert for cats, 9 Palace Place, The Catskills, NY.”

Ask students to brainstorm the kinds of issues a cat might have—try to ensure each group has a cat owner in it. They may come up with: being overweight, eating foods you don’t like, going for a walk, not liking to get wet, licking yourself, dressing up, scratching furniture, walking around at night, going to the vet, interrupted sleeping in the daytime, walking over the owner’s newspaper, refusing to do tricks, hairballs, etc.

At this point they divide up the list, choosing one to write on as a “Letter to the Queen” of about 50-75 words. Students then pair up, exchange letters, and write The Queen’s Advice…remembering to stay in character as a snooty supercilious cat. The answers can be from 75-100 words. Collect. Read out some letters to the Queen. Ask the class, “What advice do you think should be given?” Then read out the actual advice given.

For 9 creative writing ideas, click Help Me, Mr. Mutt! to download.

The Lion’s Share

February 1, 2016August 19, 2021 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

The ant is invited to the lion’s dinner party and is shocked at the manners of the other guests as they greedily “share” the cake. When she herself is accused of being greedy, the ant turns the tables on the other guests.

McCelligott’s Math

On his website, McCelligott has an interesting step-by-step explanation of geometric progression, which is what this book represents. It culminates in explaining why we get I-POD in 2,4,8,16, or 32 GB and not other numbers. For your older students.

Math – Geometric Progression

Give students a list of the animals and ask them to create a chart of the values in each division of the cake. Walk them through the first three, then explore the math pattern for solving the rest of progression and the equivalencies.

For 9 creative writing ideas, click The Lion’s Share to download.

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth

November 1, 2014August 19, 2021 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

The biography of the ancient Greek mathematician and librarian who measured the circumference of the earth, with an error of only 200 miles, at a time when people didn’t even know for sure the earth was round, using math alone.

Ancient Libraries

The Library at Alexandria was the greatest library on earth for over 1000 years. There were over 700,000 rolls of papyrus in their collection of “books.” You couldn’t take a book out, so a librarian would help you find the scroll you had in mind.

For Rapid Research (click for PDF) it would be great for students to find out everything they can about the following libraries or book collections and write their own “book” of 200-400 words:

The Library at Alexandria
The House of Wisdom
The Library at Ephesus
The Library at Constantinople
The Burning of the Mayan Books
Hitler’s Book Burning
The Cordoba Library – Library of Al-Hakam III

Look Like a Math Genius – The 11 X Table

Teach students how to multiply a two-digit number, in their head, faster than a calculator.

43 x 11 = ???

Answer:

The first number is 4
The last number is 3
The middle is their sum = 7
The answer is 473

Tell them to say it slowly, to impress their friends.

For 8 creative writing ideas, click The Librarian who Measured the Earth to download.

Jerry Seinfeld Halloween

September 15, 2014August 19, 2021 / diana cruchley / Leave a comment

This is a picture book version of Jerry Seinfeld’s wonderful routine on what Halloween was like to him as a child.

The Candy Forced Choice

Create four signs – Strongly Agree, Strongly Disagree, Agree, Disagree. Tape on the four walls of the class. Ask a series of candy related questions and have students pre-decide before going and standing under the sign for their opinion. Students under that sign should first discuss their opinion with a partner. Then you conduct a class discussion.

Ask the students in the AGREE or DISAGREE categories first – students tend to gravitate there thinking they may avoid talking – and since this is oral language, we want everyone “in” the game.

Possible questions:

Candy is better than peanuts.
O’Henry is better than Smarties.
Children should not be given any candy under the age of 4.
Parents whose children have cavities are abusive and should be fined.
If there is no real chocolate in the bar, any words that sound “chocolatey” should not be allowed.
Deciding what to eat is a decision for parents.

The Candy Vote

Around Halloween is a good time to conduct a survey. Obtain 5 different miniature candies – maybe asking students for suggestions first. Create a large chart with 5 columns, pasting a candy on each one. Explain to students the various factors that can affect a survey. (See the attached pages for an explanation of potential biases, and a possible survey). If conducting the survey, ask students to work in pairs to survey 10 students from other classes. If you have a class of 30 this would mean 150 student surveys. Here is an opportunity to ensure they understand how to calculate a percent from raw numbers. To make it easier, for younger students, ensure that only 100 surveys are conducted…results are then automatically in percentages.

For 7 creative writing ideas, click Seinfeld’s Halloween to download.

Diana Cruchley

Speaker and Author

Math