I opened the mailbox the other day to find a wonderful surprise! A picture book that teaches fractions is a fun and engaging way.
The Story
Twinderella is the story of two girls, Cinderella and Twinderella, who live with two mean step sisters and a wicked step mother (figured out the twist yet?). They get the opportunity to go to the royal ball, but must share everything they are given by their fairy godmom, just as they share their daily chores: by fractions!
The real surprise is how they end up sharing when they meet the prince (or could there be two?) and how their children help readers understand fourths and whole numbers…. but I don’t want to give too much away!
Math Learning Opportunities Abound In This Book
The inside covers of this book are filled with graphical descriptions of halves: two halves of a pear or a slice of bread as well as extending the concept of halves to bigger groups like two halves of four shoes or four gloves. I could see spending a whole math lesson with kids just on the inside cover of the book!
Great for Elementary Ages With Loads of Detail That Allow For Teaching Fractions In Many Ways
This story would be great for any age elementary child, and I think that many middle school students would like it as well. The text of the story includes picture of Tinderella and Cinderella going about their daily chores, like fixing clocks, but there are more advanced bits to fractions displayed in the pictures. On the page in which the two sisters are mending clocks, Tinderella has drawn a pie chart to bin up all the items to be fixed and divide them equally. Each type of clock is shown in the chart in a different color so you can see four green slices of wall clocks, 3 yellow slices of watches, and 5 blue slices of stand up clocks. This would give you the perfect opportunity to talk with children about graphical display of data and how you can use that to determine the percentage of each type of clock in this example. Visually, it is really easy for kids to see that one fourth of all the clocks are watches.
And that is just one page!
Each page in the book offers a new way to teach fractions as the story of the twin sisters winds through the book.
Removable Poster with Even More Math Activities
There is also a removable poster in the back of the book that displays the cover art on one side and on the other are four panels that have fraction-related activities you could do with a child.
Book Details
This is an absolutely fantastic book to aid children in learning about fractions and graphing and data, without ever being dry or boring.
Tinderella – A FRACTIONED Fairy Tale
by Corey Rosen Schwartz
Pictures by Deborah Marcero
G.P. Putnam’s Sons
An Imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group
Penguin.com/kids
32 pages
ages 4-8
$17.99
Publisher’s Book Summary:
Have you heard the story of Cinderella? Well, you don’t know the half of it.
Cinderella had a twin sister, Tinderella. They each did half the housework, half the mending, and half the mean step-sister tending. But when they meet only one prince, what will they do?
The whole story has twice the magic and double the fun!
From the author The Three Ninja Pigs comes the fractioned fairy tale of Cinderella and her less-famous sister.
About The Author:
Corey Rosen Schwartz always longed to write a fractured fairy tale and got the perfect inspiration from her son. When he was three years old, he was asked if he spoke Spanish. His answer was: “No, but I speak a little karate.” Instantly, the idea hit her . . . the three little pigs could go to ninja school! Corey has no true Ninja training, but she can sure kick butt in Scrabble. She is the author of Hop! Plop! and lives in Warren, New Jersey with her two kiddie-chans and incredibly patient husband-san.
