ANNO'S MAGIC SEEDS
Author: Mitsumasa Anno
Illustrator: Mitsumasa Anno
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Number of pages: 40
Publisher: Paperstar Book (UK) First published in: 1992 (Japanese) and 1995 (English) Format: Picturebook Is the mathematical focus explicit in the story? Yes Is this story part of a mathematics story series? Yes (Anno) Preview and/or purchase this book on the Amazon websites: UK, USA, AUS, IND, CAN Synopsis by the author/publisher
A gift from a wizard makes Jack's fortune grow by ones and twos, then threes and fours, then faster and faster, challenging you to keep track of his riches. |
“Once again, in the year after this, 1 plant came up and 2 flowers bloomed and 2 marvelous fruits grew and 2 seeds were made. And again, Jack ate 1 seed and buried the other. The next year, the flowers bloomed again and the marvelous fruits grew and 2 seeds were made, just as before. Again, Jack baked 1 seed and ate it and buried the other seed in the ground.”
Official review by MathsThroughStories.org:
Mitsumasa Anno’s ‘Anno’s Magic Seeds’ (1992) provides a wonderfully imaginative context for older students to explore the concept of exponential growth. The English translation of this original Japanese version was done in 1995. The story follows a poor young man named Jack who is given two magic seeds from a wizard who tells him to bake and eat one seed now to keep him full for a whole year, and to plant the other so that it would grow and produce two further magic seeds for him in a year. Jack obliges and two magic seeds really do grow from that one seed. He continues to eat one and plant the other for a few years until he realises if he does not eat one of the two seeds this year and instead plant both seeds, the overall number of seeds grown could be more. By the end of the first year of this new plan, Jack has four seeds: he eats one and plants the remaining three seeds which later produce six seeds. Again, Jack eats one and plants the remaining five seeds which later produce ten seeds, and so on. The story’s plot provides a great opportunity for students to engage in mathematical investigations predicting and finding out, for example, how many seeds Jack would have after a certain number of days, and whether they could come up with a mathematical formula to correctly predict the number of seeds. All in all, we very much highly recommend ‘Anno’s Magic Seeds’ to teachers of students, aged 10+ years old, to introduce the concept of exponential growth.
Recommended age range:
10+ years old
Relevant mathematics topics:
Powers & Exponential Growth
Possible teaching activities:
At MathsThroughStories.org, we believe that stories can be meaningfully incorporated in mathematics teaching in different ways. Thus, we are inviting you to share your experience of how you have used this story in your mathematics lesson with other members of the community. By sharing your experience with us, you will be added to our team of On-line Contributors here, where you can also find our submission guideline.
Mitsumasa Anno’s ‘Anno’s Magic Seeds’ (1992) provides a wonderfully imaginative context for older students to explore the concept of exponential growth. The English translation of this original Japanese version was done in 1995. The story follows a poor young man named Jack who is given two magic seeds from a wizard who tells him to bake and eat one seed now to keep him full for a whole year, and to plant the other so that it would grow and produce two further magic seeds for him in a year. Jack obliges and two magic seeds really do grow from that one seed. He continues to eat one and plant the other for a few years until he realises if he does not eat one of the two seeds this year and instead plant both seeds, the overall number of seeds grown could be more. By the end of the first year of this new plan, Jack has four seeds: he eats one and plants the remaining three seeds which later produce six seeds. Again, Jack eats one and plants the remaining five seeds which later produce ten seeds, and so on. The story’s plot provides a great opportunity for students to engage in mathematical investigations predicting and finding out, for example, how many seeds Jack would have after a certain number of days, and whether they could come up with a mathematical formula to correctly predict the number of seeds. All in all, we very much highly recommend ‘Anno’s Magic Seeds’ to teachers of students, aged 10+ years old, to introduce the concept of exponential growth.
Recommended age range:
10+ years old
Relevant mathematics topics:
Powers & Exponential Growth
Possible teaching activities:
At MathsThroughStories.org, we believe that stories can be meaningfully incorporated in mathematics teaching in different ways. Thus, we are inviting you to share your experience of how you have used this story in your mathematics lesson with other members of the community. By sharing your experience with us, you will be added to our team of On-line Contributors here, where you can also find our submission guideline.
