4^th Grade and Up

You Wouldn’t Want to Live Without Math!

You might not like math when you have to do your homework, but it would be hard to live without it.

Read all about what math does for us, allowing us to count, measure, and calculate.

Find out how numbers and math have helped us to transform the world, build computers, and even change the way we go shopping.

 

I’ve always been good with math and counting relaxes me. But when given 20 long difficult equations and it takes me 30 minutes to calculate the first one, I start to panic (This happened to me, it was not pretty).

I get how when you’re in class and you don’t want to do anything math might seem boring to some, but you’ll appreciate math more when you use it in your day-to-day life instead of in a classroom.

This book inspired me to re-watch my favorite childhood educational show, Cyberchase. Thanks to this show I learn the importance of the number 0 and how negative numbers work. You can still find old episodes on YouTube.

I leave you with this quote said by my grandpa John Redmond:

“I’m 80-year-old and I’ve never used Roman numerals!”

There’s a Roman numeral cheat in the book for anyone who needs one.

 

You Wouldn’t Want to Live Without Vegetables!

You might think you’d be happier in a world without vegetables, but you’d be wrong! Vegetables provide us with essential vitamins and minerals that make our bodies healthier and stop us from getting sick.

Read about how vegetables are grown and learn about the innovations that have been made with such humble vegetables as the potato and the carrot.

 

The history of vegetables is a lot more extensive and fascinating than I ever imagined.

The one fact I found the most informative is the difference between a fruit and vegetable. The strict definition of a vegetable is a seedless, edible part of a plant. Eggplants, avocados, zucchinis, pumpkins, and tomatoes are technically fruits because they contain seeds. Carrots, onions, cabbages, and potatoes are true vegetables.

When I was a kid, the only vegetable I could stand to eat were carrots. I still don’t really like them because they take forever to chew.

The best way to eat vegetables, in my opinion, is to make a fruit and vegetable smoothie. The sweet fruit covers up the taste of the vegetables and you don’t have to chew it, you just drink it. I use vegetables like kale, carrots, cauliflower and broccoli in my breakfast smoothie every morning. I know the vegetables are working because I have more energy than I ever did growing up without them.

You Wouldn’t Want to Live Without Books!

Imagine a world without books. You would have no information about the world outside, except what you could learn from travelers. You would know nothing about the past, except what storytellers could remember. The book is a truly amazing data storage device, yet most of us take it for granted.

Find out how it has developed over the centuries, and how it is being reinvented for the future.

I don’t even want to imagine what a world without books would be like! My whole life revolves around books; reading books, looking up books, reviewing books, listening to audiobooks, writing books, researching information for the books I’m writing, selling the books I wrote, going to libraries and bookstores to get more books. The whole reason I started this book blog is because I love books so much!

Books have coming in many shapes and variations over the years; to the earliest origins as clay tablets to their very latest incarnations – the ebook. Honestly, I’m not a fan of the e-book. I spend too much time staring at a screen to begin with. I would be nice to have hundreds of books to read on one device, but I’d rather read a paper and ink book.

But in whatever form, a book’s function is the same: to educate, inform, and entertain.

 

This weeks’ Weird but True Facts about a Math Equation, Carrots, Lost Books

111,111,111 X 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

Cooked carrots are more nutritious than raw ones.

7,200 = approximate number of books left behind on London’s mass transit system every year.