POLLY'S PEN PAL
Author: Stuart J. Murphy
Illustrator: Rémy Simard
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Number of pages: 31
Publisher: HarperCollins (USA) First published in: 2005 Format: Picturebook Is the mathematical focus explicit in the story? Yes Is this story part of a mathematics story series? Yes (MathStart) Click here to preview and/or purchase this book via the Amazon (UK) website Synopsis by the author/publisher
Polly's new pen-pal, Ally, lives in Montreal, Canada, where they use the metric system. Polly and Ally have lots in common: They both have cats, like the color purple, and are just about the same size and weight. But when Ally writes that she is 125 centimeters tall, Polly needs to ask her Dad for help to figure out how tall that really is. Dad uses a baseball bat about 1 meter—100 centimeters—long as a reference, and shows Polly that one centimeter is about the width of his little finger. Dad helps Polly figure out grams and kilograms, and meters and kilometers, also by using every day references she can relate to. The use of rough equivalents in terms of familiar objects and distances helps kids become familiar and comfortable with the metric system. |
“"Well, your weight might be a kilogram or two different than Ally's. A kilogram is 1,000 grams, and a gram is only about the weight of a leaf.”
Recommended age range:
7 years old +
Relevant mathematics topics:
Length & Distance; Mass, Volume & Capacity
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.
7 years old +
Relevant mathematics topics:
Length & Distance; Mass, Volume & Capacity
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.
