The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure
by Hans Magnus Enzenberger
This book is one of my favorites! It is the story of Robert, a twelve-year-old boy and his adventures in mathematics over the period of twelve nights. During each of these twelve nights, Robert, who hates math, meets the Number Devil. The Number Devil takes Robert on a crazy adventure while teaching him all about the many interesting facts and facets of mathematics.
This year, I am introducing The Number Devil to your child as an interdisciplinary project. Your child will engage in mathematics, reading, writing, history, art and more. It is my hope that, through this project, your child will come to learn about, enjoy and respect mathematics even just a little bit more.
The Project Basics:
Each student will be assigned a book. Please be certain that these books are taken care of and returned to me in the same condition that they were given. I will be asking for refund payments for any lost or damaged books. The cost of each book is approximately $15.00.
Students will be provided a rubric for each facet of the project. They will be responsible for reading each chapter and then completing some work on that chapter. Students will have a period of 2 weeks to complete each chapter; for a total of 24 weeks. It is important that you help monitor your child's progress to make certain that they are completing assignments in a timely fashion.
This project will be graded as the equivalent of two (2) test grades and will be scored within the quarter in which completion of the project falls. Late work will only be accepted with a ten point deduction per day.
The Project Creation:
The students will need a one-inch binder with a clear cover on the front (the kind that lets you slip a piece of 8.5"x11"paper in it). They will be designing their own cover for the project binder.
The first page inside the binder will be a Title Page:
The Number Devil Project
by Sally Student, Pd. #
Ms. Gullick Grade 6 Math
School Year 2017-18
The second page inside the binder will be a Table of Contents. I will provide the Table of Contents handout to each student. Activities will be ordered in the Table of Contents by Night # and Activity #. For example, 3.4 means Third Night, Activity 4.
The third page inside the binder will be a Glossary of Terms that the student will create. For each word, include the following:
(a) Define it in your own words. You may use your math book, dictionary, or the internet to help you. Please provide the source used with each term.
(b) Explain how each term is used in the book. The page numbers for each term can be found in the index.
(c) Provide your own example to help explain what it means.
The words to include in your Glossary of Terms includes the following:
Arithmetic progressions, Continued fraction; Diagonals; Factorial, Fibonacci sequnce; Golden Mean; Hexahedron, Imaginary Numbers, Irrational Numbers, Natural Numbers, Pascal's Triangle, Permutation, Pythagorean Theorem, Square Roots, Sieve of Eratosthenes, Tetrahedron, Triangular Numbers; Vertices; Zero Power.
divisible by numbers other than just one and itself. – Example: 5 is a prime number because its only factors are 5 and 1.
All activities will be placed sequentially inside the binder, starting with Night 1, Activity 1 ( 1.1 )