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Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail By Danica McKellar ( Plume )
Release Date: 2008-07-01
Average Customer Rating:
List Price: $15.00
Price: $9.73
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Product Description
The runaway national bestseller, now in paperback
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 Math can be fun!!! (Never thought I'd say that!)
I bought this book for my daughter who was struggling with math. I loved Danica on Wonder Years, so I figured it would at least be entertaining. My daughter loves this book, and also the fun quizzes, and the neat tricks she has for remembering functions.
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 A Good Tool to help your daughter understand math. ( skylarkthibedeau )
We all knew by watching the Wonder Years that Winnie Cooper was smart. We didn't realize that Actress Danica McKeller who portrayed Winnie on TV is even smarter than that iconic Girl next Door Character.
McKeller has written a book for Jr. High girls that introduces them and reintroduces their parents to basic concepts in math like factors, prime numbers, quotients, and others that tended to make my head swim in school. She does this by using illustrations that the girls can relate to like boys (What factors do the guy that dumped you and the guy you currently like have in common), Fashion (you have 18 lipstick samples you need to divide into gift bags, how many combinations can you make?), Food (Using pizza slices to illustrate fractions) and many many other clever examples.
Everything is written in clear easy to understand language and should be easy for most Middle School Children to grasp. Even boys if they aren't too turned off by some of the more girly examples will get some good math knowledge from the text. I myself find the book helps me overcome my aversion to Math a bit and maybe I'll start trying to balance my checkbook without Quicken.
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Elementary schooler can't put it down ( fjamesmorton )
I bought this book in "anticipation" of math troubles for my now 8-year-old. I explained to her that we'll read it together as she gets closer to middle school, but she finds it so interesting now, she's reading it as if it were prose. I suspect she's simply intrigued with Danica and all things adolescent (since most little girls idolize teen girls), but whatever it is, she's enjoying reading this book. Hopefully, we're paving the road to a good relationship with math in the near future.
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My 7th Grade Students Love This Book! ( megan@umail.ucsb.edu )
The day after I got this book I was able to use Danica's ideas to teach my 7th grade students about factoring. Anyone who's read this book knows about monkeys being 'prime-ates' and them hanging on the bottom of the factor trees! What a unique and exciting way to teach factoring. My students remembered it all year.
There are a lot of reasons I like having this book in my middle school math classroom (it's in the 'math library' - available for anyone to read whenever there's time). Here are a few:
1. The cover brings instant respect from the students. You mean she likes math? And she's an actress? The boys take notice because there's a pretty girl saying that math doesn't suck. The girls think if Danica likes math, it's okay for them to like math, too. Win-win.
2. She introduces and explains concepts in a way you definitely won't find in the textbook. Take a look at the table of contents and you'll know what I mean. If a student doesn't understand a lesson, I can refer them to Danica. She's able to explain topics in a way I would have never thought of.
3. The book is filled with features that make it fun to read like quizzes, horoscopes, and testimonials from other girls about their math experiences. It's far more entertaining than a math textbook.
Although the explanations are helpful for any student, the book is definitely written for girls. And with good reason! As she talks about in her book over and over again, it's common for girls to be afraid of being smart - especially in math. Convincing my female students that it's okay to be good at math is hard for me to do as their teacher. But here's a pretty girl (an actress, no less) saying that not only 'math doesn't suck' but math is fun! Priceless.
I highly recommend this book for math teachers needing a new way to teach a concept, for students who don't understand their math teacher, and for the parents of middle school girls.
A note about the difference between the books: My 7th graders like this book best because it covers the majority of the 7th grade topics. My 8th graders like her newer book (Kiss My Math) because it focuses on pre-Algebra. Either way, Danica is a positive role model whose presence in my classroom is invaluable. Thank you, Danica!
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Math Doesn't Suck
My daughter's tutor who is a fifth grade teacher borrowed this book from us and took it to his elementary school. His supervisor ordered 5 books for the the school. They felt the language was very appropriate for kids and it had very good tips, ideas, and ways of explaining math so that kids could relate. It was originally recommended to me by my daughter's 7th grade teacher. My daughter has always struggled in math and we look forward to using this book daily.
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