The Best of Times: Math Strategies That Multiply

by Greg Tang

Book Overview

NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Greg Tang takes on the times tables, teaching kids innovative ways to multiply numbers and derive answers WITHOUT memorization.

Four is very fast to do when you multiply by 2.Here's a little good advice --please just always double twice BEST OF TIMES gives kids an intuitive understanding of multiplication, encouraging them to arrive at answers on their own rather than memorizing the times tables. A child who...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0439210445
• ISBN13: 9780439210447
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Scholastic Press
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 9.4" x 10.3"
• Age Range: 7 to 10 years
• Grade Range: Grades 2 to 5

Customer Reviews

Not just for kids

This book shines light from unexpected angles in kids' math. You will realize there's more to multiplication table, than simply memorizing it. I recommend this book highly, not only to those who's learning multiplication, but to many, many adults out there who struggle with calculating tips or balancing a checkbook. You can apply his method to calculate much larger numbers in a flash!

Outstanding

This book has help my six year old understand the concept of multiplication. Thank you so much!!!

The BEST way to teach math

Half of me wants to praise Gregory Tang for doing what so needed to be done. He has shown how to do math what I call "the easy way", the way great mathematical brains do it. Not only has he made books that teach math how it should be taught, and exposes those boring heavy school books as just that, but he has put it in an amusing form - a geneous in litterature as well as math! The other part of me is like "oh, no! he let the secret out" now people will no longer marvel at my great math ability. After understanding all his books, any child could rival my ability in math, that used to keep my peers in awe! Math is all about relationships, relationships of numbers. No, he doesn't suggest ways to memorize something just to "get the right answer", he truely makes just the right delicate mixture of encourageing and not getting in the way (that great teachers know), to provide the perfect environment for them to figure out and explore the relationships of numbers themselves. Beautiful.

Math and Literature is a Great Mix

Greg Tang has done it again, combining literature with mathematics and giving a concrete concept of multiplication with pictures and rhyme. A great introduction to multiplication.

The Best Of Times - A Wonderful Resource!

As a teacher, this book is a wonderful resource because it does not promote the memorization of multiplication facts, but rather it teaches the reader to problem solve and that there are different ways to approach a problem. As the title suggests, it is full of 'strategies' - when students attempt a mathematical problem of any sort, you want them to have a bank of strategies to draw from. This book is ideal for that. My students enjoyed the playful rhymes, almost musical in a way, as well as the bright, vibrant illustrations of all of Tang's books. Tang has a wonderful way of making math "make sense" for kids. Two thumbs up!