Author: Alice Aspinall
Illustrations: Alexandria Masse
Description: Amy is a spunky fifth grader who continues to doubt her mathematical abilities. Her friends, Johnathan, Miles, and Luciana, support and encourage her to work through the struggles and reach her math potential. Remembering advice from their teacher to use brain breaks, teamwork, and a growth mindset, they solve real-life math problems that arise while they play, one step at a time.
Review:
I won a copy of Alice Aspinall’s book “Let’s Explore Math” in an Instagram contest. Being I was already well aware of Aspinall’s great work on her website, Everyone Can Learn Math, I wanted to review her latest book for STEM/CTE is the way.
In “Let’s Explore Math,” there are four short vignettes, each featuring an aspect of how math can be seen in real life. Each vignette tells a story where a group of friends (Jonathan, Miles, and Luciana) comes together to help support and encourage their friend (Amy), who lacks confidence in her mathematical ability. Each story shows how the friends work to solve a problem. Each story uses illustrations, math examples, extension questions, vocabulary, and more to give a comprehensive view of how to overcome math anxiety and how math problems can be solved.
This is a fantastic book for both parents and children! As parents, we often struggle to understand how math is being taught to our children because it usually differs from the way math was taught to us when we were students. I love how this book shows Amy using a growth mindset and flexible thinking to overcome her anxiety. Every student, who believes they just can’t do math, deserves to be shown that math can be fun! I have seen this take place in my own daughter and it’s inspiring to see the transformation that has taken place in her. Using books like this can help your own child/student do the same!
“Let’s Explore Math” is a must-read for parents, teachers, and studnets alike. If this book is your first introduction to Alice Aspinall, I highly recommend you visit her website and look into her other books!
Have a STEM book you’d like reviewed?
I’d be happy to review your book… I’m especially interested in reviewing books featuring:
- Equity in STEM
- Careers
- Math, Coding, Computational thinking
- Making
- Project-based learning
Feel free to contact me!
