Maria writes, “Funville Adventures is a creative, joyful, and gentle new project that introduces young children to advanced math. Children as young as 5 will enjoy the story and math-rich play; older children and adults can also investigate the deeper mathematical concepts such as inverse function, composition, and functional.”
It’ll be Creative Commons, too! $8 gets you an ebook, $25 gets you a print edition. The book is drafted, peer reviewed and ready to print, so the fulfillment risks are low. I prepaid for a print copy.
While on the surface, Funville Adventures is just a fairy tale, the powers of the Funvillians are a vehicle for introducing children to the concept of a function. Each power corresponds to a transformation such as doubling in size, rotating, copying, or changing color. There is even a Funvillian whose power is to change other Funvillians’ powers. Some Funvillians have siblings with opposite powers that can reverse the effects and return an object to its original state, but other powers cannot be reversed. In this way, we introduce kids to the mathematical concepts of invertible and non-invertible functions, domains, ranges, and functionals without mathematical terminology.
The concept of a function is truly fundamental, and accessible to children from a young age. It is unfortunate that for many of them, their first encounter with it is in high school or late middle school, often in a dry, technical manner. We present this material in a form that will appeal not only to kids already interested in math, but also to who are missing out on mathematical adventures.
Funville Adventures! A math-inspired children’s book
[Sasha Fradkin/Kickstarter]
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