The story follows Sir Cumference and his son Radius are eating lunch one day when suddenly his father falls ill and sends Radius on an errand to pick up medicine from the Wizard. When he gets there the Wizard is no where to be found, and Radius takes it into his own hands to find his father medicine. He grabs a random potion, returns, and after gulping it down Sir Cumference turns into a dragon. In order to save his father from angry soldiers, and from the potion itself, Radius runs back to the Wizard and finds a potion to cure Sir Cumference. However, the key to this medicine is that it must be in the correct dosage or else it will not work. This medicine is called the 'The Circles Measure', and in order to find the correct dose he must measure the circle around and in the middle, then divide. Regardless of the size of the circle the dose will be the same. As Radius runs throughout the kingdom he runs into several different circles, whether it was cheese, pie, wheels, or the dragon he came to the conclusion that they all resulted in the same number after completing his measurements (3.17). He took that number, made it to his father before the knights began to attack and provided the correct dose. Sir Cumference returned to human form, and they were able to live happily from then on, but not before they celebrated for three days of course.
If you would like to experience the book for yourself I was able to find reading on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OU_O8PdDJpI
I believe that children can honestly benefit tremendously from the integration of lessons through novels and even children's literature. They provide an outlet that is both entertaining and can mask the true education that may come out of the storyline. For example in this novel the characters names are all the key terms needed when calculating geometric measurements in circles, but the children would never know because it is just another funny character that they are enjoying. However, once we return to the mundane lessons provided by most traditional math classes we lose their attention. This story and others like it are nice supplemental tools that will enhance and reinforce the material that needs to be expressed.
I actually thought about doing this one, but I went with a story I was more familiar with. I loved the idea behind it, because it takes real talent to make something like circumference fun. If anyone gets a chance I suggest you check out the online reading version, it just make things more silly and fun. Overall the concept is simple enough that I can't say the book really helped, but i still thoroughly enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteI really liked this story, it's mathy in a fun way. The summary got my interest to read the whole book. I do agree with you on how children learn though novels and literature. Entertainment within education makes a difference in learning.
ReplyDeletefrank,
ReplyDeletei love the sir cumference stories! i own most of them. you did a really good job of explaining some of the concepts addressed in the text. i like what you said about how using this text readers can become familiar with these mathematical terms in a fun way. this is important because possibly later when the concepts need to be applied, the students will be able to recall these terms from the text.
great summary and explanations!
professor little