Robert FromanCritiques

This book focuses on the topic of functions. I felt as if this book gave way too much information. The information tried to tied back to everyday life but got lost. There was no plot, just information that ran on for pages, which made it difficult to follow along. The illustrations were very dull, but that is understandable since the book is dated from 1974.½

A Game of Functions introduces the concept of "functions." Functions are the same in math as they are in everyday life. Hunger is a function because it depends on when you ate last. It then shifts over to how functions are used in math.

This one might be a bit more advanced because I had some trouble understand it myself. It tries to gives kids an idea of what a function is by using situations of picnics and games. The paragraphs feel like they go one forever and the images do not help much. It feels very dated as well. I'm not sure how effective this book would be when read by itself.

This book is filled with information about Venn Diagrams. The two main characters of the story are doing many daily activities, and they figure out many things and count objects by making a Venn diagram. Although this story has many great examples of how a Venn diagram works, it was my least favorite math book I had picked out this week. Each page was filled with a bunch of different things to put into the Venn diagram, and I felt as if it may be too overwhelming for a young reader. Also, in one part of the book, one of the characters says- “But what if you smell something? You might smell your mother’s perfume. Or some cigarette smoke”. I feel as if this part of the book may be a little inappropriate for young readers, and the author should have replaced this with normal smoke instead of cigarette smoke.½

"Venn Diagrams" goes very in depth on Venn Diagrams and ways to use them. The book is simple and explains Venn Diagrams well. I didn't like how the illustrations went from black and white to color. Not an easy book for kids to read but it does give a lot of info on Venn Diagrams.

This book can be used to teach High School and Elementary students, angles and how they are related to different shapes and figures.

Venn Diagrams (A Young Math Book)is a children's book explaining a Venn Diagram and how you can use them. I am on the fence with this book. I like how simplistically the book explains Venn Diagrams, however the examples go on and on. It really drags the book out. Also, I loved the illustrations in the book, but one page would be in color and the next would be in black and white. I don't know if this was intentional or not? But, it definitely distracted me from reading the text. I would not read this aloud to a class. I might use a part of the text to use as an example in a math class. I could also give this to a student who may have a hard time grasping the concept of a Venn Diagram.

This is not a book I would recommend for teaching, or for reading for fun. It is boring, and drags on. It references cigarette smoke as a smell for children to think about putting into their diagram of what they see and smell. I just do not think that at this point in time we should have books out there referencing cigarettes in any way. The pictures were cute, but that was about it.

This is a good little book to introduce young learners to Venn diagrams. The illustrations give it a dated feel, but the information inside has not changed.

A great use of this book would be for children to read the examples and create Venn diagrams from their own life. Teachers could ask their students to create circles based on clothing. I can see students drawing and labeling circles with sidewalk chalk. They could label the circles blue jeans, tennis shoes, white shirts, or whatever characteristics they see. Then students can scramble to find their place in the circles. As a project, they could create a Venn diagram based on things they see at home. Venn diagrams can be fun and informative and this book would be a great introduction.

People can do many functions in everyday life, such as putting stamps on mail. There are simple functions, as well as complicated ones.½

This book I have classified as an experiment, activity, how-to book because it teaches about Venn diagrams. The teaching about Venn diagrams is effective. However, I find the explanations about how to use the Venn diagrams to solve the presented problems ineffective and insufficient to teach the reader the process. Stylistically I find a disparity between the level of presentation of the basic facts of what Venn diagrams are and how to construct them using varying categories of items and the level of understanding needed to actually use the diagrams to solve the problems. The tone of the basic exposition of the book is at a much lower level than the level of logical reasoning necessary to use the Venn diagrams to actually solve the last few problems presented. My 2 star rating reflects this disparity.
For my own personal uses (secondary math teaching) I would not be able to use this book.

The words of these fifty-one brief poems are arranged on the pages in shapes appropriate to the subject of the poem.Fiction. Helps with reading fluency in the classroom. Ilustrations drawn with pastals. Great for grades k-3.