Text #5 - Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone
The Sir Cumference and the Sword in the Cone is about a young knight's search for King Arthur's sword. King Arthur is looking to find the knight that is worthy of taking his place as King. He has given them a riddle that if solved correctly will lead them to the sword. The children's story book takes you through the journey of Vertex and Radius as they solve the riddle. They must create 3 dimensional figures from their nets, calculate the number edges, vertices, and faces for each figure in order to determine which ones satisfy the riddle. After determining the correct solids they go searching through the castle for these particular 3D figures in the hopes of finding the sword. They eventually find the cone with the correct measurements and thus King Arthur's sword.
This book would be a fun way to introduce edges, vertices, and faces which in itself is not the most exciting lesson. I would walk the students through how to make inferences and allow them to try and predict where they think the sword is hidden. After I document their predictions we will calculate the number of edges, vertices, and faces for each of the figures on the parchment. I will have a huge poster in the front of the room with our findings but the students will have their own table to keep in their notebook as well. After we have completed the table I will ask them if anyone would like to change their predictions. We will finish reading the rest of the short story to see how close our predictions were.
Neuschwander, C., & Geehan, W. (2003). Sir Cumference and the sword in the cone (pp. 1-32). Charlesbridge.
The best feature of this text is that it's so interactive. It seems that students would be excited and anxious to participate by reading. Another advantage is making inferences. It's so important for the young students to be able to list/notice important terms or keywords that would make the word problem less challenging. This would be a great example on how to actually make inferences when I get to the system of equations unit in Math 1.
ReplyDeleteRenee,
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be a very enjoyable text. I like that you have chosen a children's book because it uses student friendly language and is approachable for all learning types. The activity you have paired it with is wonderful for further comprehension into the classroom. It would have helped me a lot when I was in math!