Customer Reviews

SIR CUMFERENCE/THE FIRST ROUND TABLE(pb)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I read this to my seven year old. He found the story very interesting and runs about laughing about things like diameter and circumference. He remembers the names, and the way the measurements are presented is very conceptual. Great for young kids, but above third grade or so, I'd say it may not do a whole lot except for help remember the names. It was a *cute* story, not anything very dramatic, and was appropriate for young children.

While parts of the story seemed a bit far-fetched, my 5th grade students loved the play on words in the characters' names. They also enjoyed seeing how a rectangle was changed to create other polygons (and finally a circle). At the end of the reading, one student said, "I'll never forget THESE math terms!" I suppose I achieved my objective. The kids didn't much care for the illustrations, however. They created their own!

This book answers that question with a resounding "YES!" To call a children's book "riveting" may seem a bit pretentious, but my husband and I could not put this book down! Each page is filled with "new" characters from King Arthur's court you'll never forget! The amazing characterizations of math and geometry make this book one of the best learning tools I've found yet. Parents, no longer approach the "dreaded subject" of teaching math to your kids with fear...Sir Cumference is truly our "knight in shining armor!"

This is a great book for all ages. I used it with my 7th grade math class to help explain circles and how we measure them. They loved it. They all paid attention and learned from this fun book.

This book creatively exposes the reader to some common geometric terms. Although I would not say it is extremely educational, it is the most mathematically educational story book I've ever seen (because most story books are not about math). My three year old daughter thought the book was for her, and asked to have it read to her every night. She loved it! My 11 year old son is really too old for the book, but he still liked it.

My amazon record shows that I actually bought this book. I had forgotten, and 'returned' it to the public library, which is where I wish I'd gotten it to begin with. The story is strained and not very informative. Great math books worth buying to read to your child include Math Trek, Math Trek 2, G is for Google, and especially, the Number Devil - reading great math books has been wonderful fun for my family - but not Sir Cumference.

I'm not a connoiseur of children's literature. But I will be teaching high school math in about a year and used this book for a math methods class. I enjoyed the humor and the art. The reading level is about 4th grade and so is the math content. Most of the book illustrates in a amusing way just how circles are different from other geometric shapes and how these differences affect the design of everyday objects. The book ends by tying the definition of circumference, radius and diameter to the names and actions of the main characters in the story.

However, the story line is marred by a certain tedious political correctness in that the outsiders who appear to threaten the realm are not really a threat - it's all a misunderstanding. This hollows out the content of the ideal of the knight (or soldier or policeman), a hero who employs his strength at the risk of his own life to defend the more vulnerable members of the community from villains and the community itself from outside threats.