Tuesday, February 18, 2014

The Raja's Cāvala

Do you like math?

The subject of math is not everyone's favorite field. Math can sometimes have a bad reputation. However, even if you don't like it, math can still be surprising and entertaining! Let's say someone decided to give you a dollar bill and told you they were going to double the amount they were giving you everyday for the next 30 days. Would you think you would be rich on the 30th day or not? After you read the book One Grain of Rice by Demi you may be highly surprised. This story is a folktale. What in the world is a folktale? This means that there can be many versions of this one story and it can teach community values and social mores. This folktale teaches us how to think, about cleverness, social responsibility, and of course math. Don't worry, this math is fun!

A very long time ago in India, there was a raja who thought he was wise and fair. However, every single year, he kept almost all of his people's rice to himself. Then when a famine came, the raja would not share the rice, and all of the people went hungry. Then one day, a village girl named Rani devised a clever plan. She did a good deed for the raja, and in return the raja lets her choose her reward. Rani asks him for just one grain of rice, doubled everyday for 30 days. Through the amazing and surprising power of doubling, that one little grain of rice becomes more than one billion grains of rice. Rani is able to teach the raja a lesson about what it truly means to be wise and fair.

Are you starting to rethink your answer for the money?

By following the standard, MCC.4.OA.5, which states, “Generate a number or shape pattern that follows a given rule. Identify apparent features of the pattern that were not explicit in the rule itself” can anyone figure out how many grains our rice Rani had after 30 days? (Remember she started with one grain of rice and it doubles every day).

There are many different activities we can do with this book. One activity is have the children create a table to find out how many grains of rice she received after 30 days. We would not recommend having students do this activity if they are below 4th grade. Another good activity would be to have the students act the story out. One person can play the raja, one girl can play Rani, and so on. We will tell the students that for the first day she only asked for one grain of rice but each day the rice would double. From this statement, the students would act out and tell the class how much rice she got each day. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

So, how much money do you think you will have after 30 days? (Remember you started with a dollar on the first day, and it doubles every day.)






2 comments:

  1. I have not heard of this book y'all chose, so thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed this blog and the activity idea you incorporated for this book. As a Special Education major I immediately thought of using a sensory bin with rice as an activity idea to use with this book. I definitely could see using this book in my classroom. Great blog!

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  2. Addie: Math is not my subject so I understand how hard it is to get the concept. I have never heard of this book, but I think that it would be really good to use in any math classroom. It would be very useful in a special education classroom because of the rice activity as Ashton said! I am glad ya'll chose this book to use. This will be a great resource for the classroom!

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