Stacks of Trouble

Math Matters®

by Martha F. Brenner

Mike learns how dirty dishes can multiply when he tries to avoid washing them.

Genres: Mathematics

32 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2000

Reviews

[Vanessa Peavy]

Mike learns how fast dirty dishes can pile up when he tries to avoid washing them.

Good for teaching wwhat procrastination looks like.
As an activity I would give have 4 groups of students. I would have them use manipulative to models what 64 dishes would look like. Then I would have them solve a few problems consisting of multiplication, addition and subtraction. Questions might look like this:
if there were 6 yellow plates and 3 green plates and then Sarah and John used 3 red plates how many dirty plates do I have all together?
If there are 6 people eating dinner and they each use 3 dishes, how many dirty dishes will there be?

[Bern]

Now you tell me who doesn't relate to not wanting to wash the dishes! When the water goes off (as is often the case in my neighborhood) I often find myself doing the math of how many dishes needed to wash vs how many liters of bottled water is left. When he brought out the picture frames and dump truck to eat off instead of plates and serving bowls 🤣 lol that just took me out. My son's ND brain appreciates these books because the characters tend to have mental math running through their minds as they go about their day, something real soothing about that to him. Okay I think I've 10×10 teaspoons in the sink to wash right now.

[Deanna]

This is a good pretty good book for fraction practice. It could be more explicit in stating the relationships between the action of the characters and the multiplication problems posed.
It is an alright book for guided reading practice, but I do not think it adds much to a child's literacy experience.

[Molly Robbins]

This book is great for ESOL students because they also have the book in Spanish. You could have the child read the spanish and english version to help the child be able to recognize and practice english and spanish back and fourth while still working on reading. This book is introducing multiplying.

[Jennifer]

My students and I enjoyed this book. If I'm being honest, I might have liked it a little more than they did.

[Wendy]

multiplication