Review: Ann McCallum Book, Beanstalk: The Measure of a Giant (TOS Review)

For this review we read Beanstalk: The Measure of a Giant by Ann McCallum Books. 

This is a fun book that explains ratios.  It’s a spin off the classic tale of Jack and the Beanstalk.  Jack climbs the beanstalk and makes friends with the giant, but their height difference makes it difficult to play together.  In this book they figure out the ratios in their height difference (and other problems that arise) and they are able to figure out how to play games together fairly!

The illustrations are very colorful and vivid. They are sure to catch a young child’s attention.  Though not all young children may grasp the complete concept of ratios, they will still enjoy the story and any applications you might add.

As part of reading this book, I used some ratio worksheets from Super Teacher Worksheets (a previous review) for my 9 year old.  The worksheets consisted of writing rations, for how many forks to spoons were in the drawing, dogs to cats, etc.  With my younger children, we also had a lot of fun measuring things!  How tall was the Giant and how tall was Jack?  Measuring shadows too is fun!   There are lots of great ways to spin off this book and add to the fun!  They were a little young to fully grasp the ratio concept, so we just had fun measuring things.  We measured animals, household objects, etc…

My 3 older children enjoyed this book a lot.  My 9 yo was able to read it himself, and I would say children at a 2nd to 3rd grade reading level could easily read the book alone.  My 5 and 6 yo enjoyed listening to the story.  We have read it several times over and over again.

Even though younger kids might not fully grasp the concept, it’s a great introduction.

Living Math Books are a great way to teach mathematical concepts in real life! 

Ann McCallum has several Living Books to make learning fun! Check out the others that were also reviewed by crew members by clicking below!