Our boys love reading, so when we were given the opportunity to review Beanstalk: The Measure of A Giant, written by Ann McCallum from Ann McCallum Books, our boys were really ecstatic.
Beanstalk: The Measure of A Giant is a spin off of the classic Jack in the Beanstalk story that teaches kids about ratios and proportions. In this 32-page book, Jack climbs the beanstalk and finds a lonely giant. The two young boys become firm friends but have difficultly playing together due to their size. What works for Jack will not work for the Giant. By using their math skills, they work out that the Giant is five times bigger than Jack.
Through the lovely illustrations and the adventurous story, children are able to see and understand how the two characters work together to figure out the giant to human size ratio.
How did we go?
On opening our package, this book was immediately taken from my hands before I had the chance to even look at it! Both of our boys have read and re-read this book many times, it keeps disappearing and reappearing all around the caravan.
Recommended for children in Grades 3-5 (ages 7-10), both our boys read it many times on their own before we before we sat down to go through it together.
While looking through Ann McCallum‘s website, I came across some lesson plans and activities which gave the boys an opportunity to put into practice some of the skills they read about in the book. One of the activities for children was to make giant sized cookies. Our boys really enjoyed eating their large cookies.
Overall, this is a really neat math adventure book about ratios and proportions and is a very fun way to introduce children to math concepts.
Ann McCallum is a math teacher and an award-winning author. Five of the books she has written are being reviewed by the Crew, so don’t forget to check out the rest of the Schoolhouse Crew Reviews.
Preposition Printable Pack