MR. OWL'S BAKERY
Author: Ji-hyeon Kim
Illustrator: Hye-won Yang
|
Number of pages: 36
Publisher: big & SMALL Publishing (Australia) First published in: Unknown Translated into English in: 2016 Format: Picturebook Is the mathematical focus explicit in the story? Yes Is this story part of a mathematics story series? Yes (TanTan Math Story) Preview and/or purchase this book on the Amazon websites: UK, USA, AUS, CAN Synopsis by the author/publisher
Mr. Owl sells doughnut holes, and a few doughnut holes go missing every day. He takes a clever fox's advice and sells the doughnut holes in bundles of five and ten. Can he stop the doughnut holes from going missing and find out the mystery? |
“That night, Mr. Owl made the doughnut holes, and as the clever fox had told him, he put 5 cinnamon doughnut holes on a skewer and 10 sugar doughnut holes on a skewer. He counted the cinnamon doughnut holes, 5 on each skewer. "5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50 altogether."”
Official review by MathsThroughStories.org:
Ji-hyeon Kim’s ‘Mr. Owl’s Bakery’ is part of the world’s largest mathematical story picture book series, called TanTan Math Story (70+ titles). The English translation of this original South Korean version was done in 2016. The story is about Mr. Owl who prepares 50 cinnamon doughnut holes and 100 sugar doughnut holes to sell everyday. When only four cinnamon doughnut holes and nine sugar doughnut holes start to remain at the end of each of his business days, Mr. Owl knows something is not right as the former are normally sold in bags of five and the former in bags of ten. A cunning fox turns up and advises Mr. Owl to put the two types of doughnut holes onto a skewer so that they would be hard to be stolen. Later that night, Mr. Owl follows the fox’s advice and put five cinnamon doughnut holes on each skewer, and ten sugar doughnut holes on each skewer. Whether this advice works can be found at the end of the story. The story itself is quite humorous with a moral message, but opportunities to learn and practise skip counting (i.e. the mathematical focus of the story) seems somewhat limited. Like most titles in this series, the book comes with a few mathematical word problems relating to the story to be solved at the end of the story. All in all, ‘Mr. Owl’s Bakery’ could be used to introduce the concept of skip counting to children aged 5+ years old.
Recommended age range:
5 years old +
Relevant mathematics topics:
Skip counting
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.
Ji-hyeon Kim’s ‘Mr. Owl’s Bakery’ is part of the world’s largest mathematical story picture book series, called TanTan Math Story (70+ titles). The English translation of this original South Korean version was done in 2016. The story is about Mr. Owl who prepares 50 cinnamon doughnut holes and 100 sugar doughnut holes to sell everyday. When only four cinnamon doughnut holes and nine sugar doughnut holes start to remain at the end of each of his business days, Mr. Owl knows something is not right as the former are normally sold in bags of five and the former in bags of ten. A cunning fox turns up and advises Mr. Owl to put the two types of doughnut holes onto a skewer so that they would be hard to be stolen. Later that night, Mr. Owl follows the fox’s advice and put five cinnamon doughnut holes on each skewer, and ten sugar doughnut holes on each skewer. Whether this advice works can be found at the end of the story. The story itself is quite humorous with a moral message, but opportunities to learn and practise skip counting (i.e. the mathematical focus of the story) seems somewhat limited. Like most titles in this series, the book comes with a few mathematical word problems relating to the story to be solved at the end of the story. All in all, ‘Mr. Owl’s Bakery’ could be used to introduce the concept of skip counting to children aged 5+ years old.
Recommended age range:
5 years old +
Relevant mathematics topics:
Skip counting
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.
