ADDverse I
By M. W. Penn
Gumboot Books
The first in a series of books of poems that each focus on one math concept, ADDverse I includes Farmers Yercle’s Circles and Peter Pattern.
Farmer Yercle’s farm is called the Circle 8, and nothing on that silly farm is oval, square or straight. Circular fields, cylindrical pegs and globular chickens on the Circle 8 teach children about the two dimensional shape and three dimensional volumes based on the circle; but they learn while enjoying metered rhyme and the delightful drawings of physicist M. Sliczniak-Swirszcz. “Farmer Yercle’s chicken coop is made of long round pegs; inside balloon shaped chickens only lay balloon shaped eggs.”
Peter Pattern encourages children to search for pattern everywhere: in the threads that weave a sheet; in the sound of marching feet; in nature; and, eventually, in numbers. “See the numbers growing fast, each one larger than the last. Could there be a rule behind it? Is it there and can you find it?” Pattern, the precursor of algebra and iteration, is an integral part of the curriculum standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and of state curriculum standards. M. W. Penn uses the standards as a basis for all her work.
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