Teach Children to Never Give Up with ‘Everyone Can Learn Math’ by Alice Aspinall
“Everyone is able to get better at something if they try really hard.”
-Miles, from Everyone Can Learn Math by Alice Aspinall
The message of perseverance comes through loud and clear in this charming, relatable story. The main character, Amy, is having a difficult time understanding how to solve the problems in her math homework and she feels she just “Can’t do math!”
Her mother understands and feels frustrated as well because she felt the same way as a child, but encourages Amy to “Work it through carefully.”
Through careful reflection of her own dance class experience and after talking to friends about how they grew to be so good at certain things, Amy is able to really understand what it takes to achieve something. She realizes we can all do difficult things.
Amy uses the same persistence she used to master an arabesque in dance class with her math. She tries her math problems a different way, doesn’t give up, and her determination pays off.
I am excited to share this book with my incoming second graders in September. It will be part of our very first math lesson and we will apply this message of perseverance in all we do.
This is the LEGO project he created showing how he is like Amy. He never gave up and learned to play baseball.
He also pretended to be Amy and wrote a journal entry he thought she might write.
He created a journal, pretending to be Amy.
All this talk about math reminded William about a situation we had this morning. Yesterday we made 20 brownies and after eating some and giving some away he expected to see a certain amount left this morning. As you can see by his face, there were some missing. He told us that by careful math calculations he knew someone had secretly stolen the brownies over night ( after his bedtime) and bothered his sister for a LONG time about it.
These are the brownies ( or lack of brownies) he discussed in his video.
I am really looking forward to adding this book to my classroom library in September and seeing and hearing my students’ reactions and responses!
Thank you so much for visiting the blog today! I hope you found this post worthwhile. Find out more about Alice Aspinall’s book here.
I’m excited about my forthcoming book Educate the Heart: Screen-Free Activities for Grades Pre-K-6 to Inspire Authentic Learning and it is available for preorder here. The ideas are based on more than 200 children’s books and with a growth mindset approach to learning. This graphic, created by Julie Woodard, gives more information about the various chapters and ideas.
I really appreciate your time and attention and if you would like to connect further feel free to leave me a comment, an email, or even a link if you have something to share. I will be sure to get back to you in a timely fashion.
Yours truly,
Jennifer
ps. Here’s the super simple and awesome fudgy brownie recipe that caused the problems this morning! There are lots of opportunities to practice math skills such as measurement, time, and fractions in this one.
You will need:
1/2 cup butter
2 squares ( 1 ounce each) unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts ( optional)
Steps:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Heat butter and chocolate in 2-quart saucepan over low heat until melted; remove from heat. Mix in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir in remaining ingredients. Spread in greased baking pan, 9x9x2 inches. Bake until brownies begin to pull away from side of pan, 20 to 25 minutes; cool. Cut into even squares. Make 20.
