Blog Post 3 - Stacks of Trouble

In the children's book, Stacks of Trouble by Martha F Brenner, Mike's mom leaves to help their aunt Sue. Mike and her sister are left alone and wanted to get a break from responsibilities, but they can't because their mom left them a long list of chores. Mike wants to make a smart decision in order to help the least, and chooses to clean the dishes, due to the fact that they have a dishwasher. However, the dishwasher is damaged and he has to do all the cleaning by hand. He decides to postpone his work, because they still had plenty dishes left (12 small plates, 12 big plates, 8 mugs, 8 bowls, 12 glasses). When lunch arrives, he proposes her sister that they should eat off paper towels, but she refuses. Now he has 8 more dirty dishes. This "stacking of plates" keep on happening, because Mike prefers to avoid washing them until he eventually runs out of clean dishes.

This is book illustrates the example of the concepts known as inputs and outputs, and they relationship they have. An input is also known as the x value, while the output is known as the y value. These are demonstrated in this book due to the following. The input in this function is the amount of food they decide to eat. While the output is the amount of dishes that are piled. As the input increases, the output increases too. This means that as they have more meals, then Mike has more dishes to clean.

Literature is an effective way to teach different math concepts, especially literature for children. Literature is a way of narrating something, and it usually is in a fun and entertaining way. Therefore if it narrates a story, and that story resembles a mathematical concept, a reader (student in this case) will be more much inclined to read this story than hearing a lecture. Through literature students can learn math in a fun and relatable way.