Living Math Books | Pi Day favorites | Charlotte Mason Style Teaching

Happy Pi day! 3.14(.17). In our classroom, aka the dining room table, we love to find math books that show a different side to teach outside of a textbook. These three series are centered around teaching arithmetic but not in a textbook way but in a way that gives life and a reason as to why we learn such a tedious subject.

I did not really get into Pi day until I read The Circumference Series and then got into teaching it in a fun and tangible way to the children. Speaking of “tangible,” another favorite series is by Greg Tang, and those are Math Fables and The Best of Times.

Click the image to see other participants favorites in this Pi day collaboration.

We make our own version of a pie (Apple Crumble) and then have a delightful afternoon reading our math books and eating the delicious treat.

And now for the icing on the cake, or the whip cream on the pie, our favorite math books:
Life of Fred. Life of Fred has had numerous raves about it and I bet you have heard of these books too. I love them because the author, a mathematician, saw a need for the student to see why we need to know math and to present it in a story-telling way but not too dumb down that mom is tired of the books by the end of the day. Each chapter works well for one week and can easily be your main “textbook” for arithmetic, and I do not say that lightly. In fact, for our family, my son(s) have learned more through the Life of Fred books then they have by the workbooks I have supplied for the last 3 years. And I am always careful to make claims like that. I have friends that will test my claims by asking my kids questions ;).

Of course I always love hearing more about everyone’s favorites and I hope you will share them in the comments below. I recently learned of these series and I had to add them to my Amazon Wish List.