One Grain of Rice by Demi

Posted by Matthew Rudansky

Title: One Grain Of Rice, A mathematical Folktale
Author and Illustrator: Demi
Grade Level: 5th Grade

 Common Core Mathematics Standard: 
1. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.OA.A.1 Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions, and evaluate expressions with these symbols.
2. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NBT.A.1 Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.
3. CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.NBT.B.5 Fluently multiply multi-digit whole numbers using the standard algorithm.

 Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice:
CCSSM SMP 5 Model with mathematics.

 Summary: This folktale is about a clever, young girl named Rani who outwits the greedy Raja to feed the people of her province. During a famine, Rani gets caught gathering rice escaping from a sack in transit from a royal storehouse to the Raja’s residence. Accused of stealing, Rani explains she collected the fallen grains to return to the Raja and not to feed herself and starving family. The Raja, moved by the girl’s honesty and loyalty grants her any wish. Rani asks for one grain of rice, but the Raja insists she deserves more. Rani obeys and asks that the one grain be doubled on the second day then, for a total of thirty days, the preceding day’s total be doubled. With the windfall, Rani feeds the entire province, ends the famine and makes the Raja a wiser and kinder sovereign. Rating: ***** I highly recommend this book because it shows students the power manipulating numbers while making mathematical computation fun and challenging. It teaches geometric progression and it’s surprising consequences in a beautifully illustrated picture book that is nothing short of a morality tale with a female heroine! Classroom Ideas: This book could be used with several mathematical topics including addition, multiplication, algebraic equations, and mental math guessing. Students could use manipulatives (even grains of rice) to count out the doubling progression until the activity becomes physically impossible. As a contest, each student could right down their best guess of the amount of grains Rani receives prior to the end of the read aloud and the manipulative exercise. Guessing or reasoning questions make a nice break in the read aloud which could also become a homework assignment for kids to discuss and reason through with an adult or older sibling. Either over one or two days, competition is always an engaging and fun activity.

Rating: ***** I highly recommend this book because it shows students the power manipulating numbers while making mathematical computation fun and challenging. It teaches geometric progression and it’s surprising consequences in a beautifully illustrated picture book that is nothing short of a morality tale with a female heroine!

Classroom Ideas: This book could be used with several mathematical topics including addition, multiplication, algebraic equations, and mental math guessing. Students could use manipulatives (even grains of rice) to count out the doubling progression until the activity becomes physically impossible.

As a contest, each student could right down their best guess of the amount of grains Rani receives prior to the end of the read aloud and the manipulative exercise. Guessing or reasoning questions make a nice break in the read aloud which could also become a homework assignment for kids to discuss and reason through with an adult or older sibling. Either over one or two days, competition is always an engaging and fun activity.