The Barton Series
The Barton Series was conceptualized and written with the primary objective of encouraging young students to appreciate how mathematics is used in the real world. The series explore mathematics through the creation of a model child, Barton, whose life experiences are captured through delightful, realistic, and entertaining stories. The stories span just about all the activities in which young children participate in school and with their families during their young, juvenile, carefree, and adventurous years.
The authors believe that a major and poignant barrier to the learning, understanding, and appreciating mathematics is the inability of students to comprehend the language embedded in worded problems. The books, therefore, provide a novel vehicle to connect numeracy and literacy since comprehension, most assuredly, is really the key to decoding the mathematics. And so several visual props have been deliberately added in every story to assist learners who may be challenged in word recognition.
The series also aims at inculcating moral and ethical values as the stories are designed to encourage good behavior and caring ways among young children. While many of the stories build on mathematics content, others focus on the process goals of mathematics such as critical thinking, problem solving, and developing positive dispositions such as respect, perseverance, and team spirit.
Thus, mathematics becomes user-friendly through this methodology that seeks to eliminate anxiety and fear for the discipline. Such negative experiences have prevented thousands of students from learning mathematics throughout their lives. The series appeals to the child’s curiosity and desire to have fun as they connect their life experiences to mathematics. The reader will experience meaningful encounters with mathematics and so appreciate its inherent beauty and efficacy in solving real life problems.
These colorful and beautifully illustrated books will strongly complement not just the mathematics but language arts and several other curriculum areas that are incorporated at the primary level in any education system.
Judge Barton
In the stories of Judge Barton, the reader is enchantingly teased into reading, learning, and comprehending the properties of several geometrical shapes. Barton, in his reverie encounter with these three-dimensional figures, was persuaded to act as the judge, as they competed for the prestigious title of the Worlds Best Shape.
The shapes, displaying a plethora of human characteristics and emotions, present their case under the strict rules, guidance, and supervision imposed by Judge Barton. Their stories entertain, enrapture, and captivate the reader as each shape perseveres to reveal their individual characteristics and boast the uniqueness of their properties. The detailed descriptions of their roles and functions are charmingly blended with sound mathematical knowledge, literary sparkle, unconcealed human emotions, and the occasional dash of humor. The shapes presentations, in the keenly contested competition, were individually designed to impress the unbiased Judge Barton into awarding the title to the best shape.
The stories take unusual twists and turns as the osmotic infiltration of human empathy, awareness, and reality slowly creeps in. The plot thickens as momentum gathers and attracts much more than the competitors. The lessons learnt and taught, especially in the unprecedented final outcome, are most assuredly heart-warming with the numerous skills and values that were added.
The reader, regardless of age, is sure to ask for more as they find delight in the mathematics of the book, not only because it is useful, but they will delight in it because it has been alloyed in beautiful literature.
