Math Poems

Poetry and math go nicely together, I've found. Here is a poem I read today to the children who come to me for math:

MATH MAKES ME FEEL SAFE - by Betsy Franco


Math isn't just adding
and subtracting.
Not for me.


Math makes me feel safe
knowing that my brother will always be
three years younger than I am,
and every day of the year will have
twenty-four hours.
That a snowflake landing on my mitten
will have exactly six points,
and that I can make new shapes
from my Tangram pieces
whenever I feel lonely.


Math isn't just adding
and subtracting.
Not for me.


Math makes me feel safe.

Isn't that lovely?

Later, I used a rhyme from a book I just purchased called You Can, Toucan, Math - by David Alder. As we are practicing our problem solving skills (in particular, figuring out what operation a story is asking you to use to come up with the correct answer), this book will come in very handy. We are going to illustrate many of the poems in the book, and then make our own book.

Here is Clementine's drawing and solution to our first math poem-puzzle: