Believe it or not, these books are about math and science! You can just let the kids think they are fun stories if you like....they'll get the science and not even realize it! (like hiding the spinach in the pasta sauce). Come See the Earth Turn: the Story of Leon Foucault By Lori Mortensen , Illustrations by Raul Allen
Have you ever gone to a science museum and seen the giant pendulum hanging from the ceiling slowly swaying and knocking down pins? Thank Leon Foucault. Leon Foucault was he the first person to photograph the sun and accurately measure the speed of light. However, his most important discovery proved that the earth spins on an axis. "Come See the Earth Turn" shows how Léon created his world famous pendulum, an invention that would prove to the public and his critics that the earth rotated.
The Rabbit Problem by Emily Gravett
Rabbits multiply.... in this endearing picture book full of pop-ups and flaps you will meet a rabbit family as they progress through a year of welcoming more and more little ones into their family. You might inadvertently learn about an amazing math concept called a Fibonacci sequence. But this is a book about rabbits.
The Fibonacci sequence is: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55,89, 144,… you add the previous two numbers to get the third. (you can see where the rabbits come in here!) The Fibonacci numbers appear everywhere in nature, from the leaf arrangement in plants, to the pattern of the florets of a flower, the bracts of a pinecone, or the scales of a pineapple.
Fibonacci is still recognized today as the greatest European mathematician of the middle ages. He was one of the first people to introduce the Hindu-Arabic number system into Europe -the same decimal system we now use today. In 1202 he studied the mathematics of reproducing rabbits.
To learn more about Fibonacci, read "Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci" by Joseph D’Agnese.
