Archive for the ‘Fibonacci’ Category

It was a big weekend for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature. On Friday, I started the day as a guest on The Gestalt Gardener, a radio show on Mississippi Public Broadcasting hosted by Felder Rushing. We talked about the book and getting kids excited about the natural world, math, and gardening. I am a longtime listener to Felder’s show so I was familiar with its rhythms; Felder fielded about 8 calls and we fit our conversation in around them. The show was re-broadcast the next morning, which coincided with our signing at Lemuria. Many of our guests at the signing told us they had heard the show. I thank Felder and Ezra Wall, the show’s producer, for having me.

Lots of friends, old and new, came out for the signing, which began during Lemuria’s regular Saturday story hour. (Thank you, Patty, for taking photographs.) One attendee, named Kimberly, brought along an observation she wrote after spending some time talking about Fibonacci numbers and pinecones with her grandmother. (Her grandmother had heard the Gestalt Gardener show.)

Today is the reading and signing party at Lemuria. We’re looking forward to seeing young readers and their grownups at 10 a.m. for some Fibonacci fun!

After being on a blog tour all week (thanks to all of the hosts), we have the featured attraction right here. I interviewed Richard about his unique contribution to Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature.

This is the fun portrait I took of him when we were doing our publicity photo shoot. The powers that be at the publishing house wanted a straight (faced) shot for the catalog so I decided we’d use it here.

Today’s fifth stop on the blog book tour is on Dori Reads, written by my writer friend Doraine Bennett. She asked me about using Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature in classrooms with students of different ages.

We’re nearing the end of the blog book tour; I thank everyone who hosted and followed along. Tomorrow, the day of our book launch at Lemuria, I will post an interview with my oft-silent co-photographer, Richard Campbell.

Our tour included stops at Writing Snacks, Teaching Authors, Joseph D’Agnese’s Blog, Live. Love. Explore., Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s Blog, and My Log Cabin Life.

Today, the blog tour continues at My Log Cabin Life by Julie Owen. Because Julie and I share a passion for photography, today’s post centers on the images.

If you missed previous posts, check them out at:

Monday: Joseph D’Agnese’s blog.

Tuesday: Live. Love Explore. by Irene Latham.

Wednesday: Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog.

Tommorrow’s post will be at Dori Reads by Doraine Bennett.

Read about how I got the idea to write a picture book featuring Fibonacci Numbers in nature at today’s stop on the virtual book tour: Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog. An author and illustrator, Elizabeth has a lot of cool stuff on her website so poke around a little after you check out the post.

Monday’s stop: Joseph D’Agnese. Tuesday’s stop: Irene Latham.

Today is the official publication date for Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature (Boyds Mills Press). To celebrate publication, I have lined up a virtual book tour. Today I am appearing on the blog of a new friend, Joseph D’Agnese. By a very happy coincidence, he has a picture book biography coming out later this month about Fibonacci, the man himself. It’s called Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci (published by Henry Holt). I can’t wait to see the book. I’ll have an interview with Joe in a few weeks.

Here’s the rest of the tour shedule:

Tuesday, March 2, at Live. Love. Explore., written by Irene Latham. (Video spot.)

Wednesday, March 3, at Elizabeth O. Dulemba’s blog. (Story behind the book.)

Thursday, March 4, at My Log Cabin Life, written by Julie Owen. (Photography.)

Friday, March 5, at Dori Reads, written by Doraine Bennett.

On Saturday, March 6, come back here for my exclusive video interview with Richard Campbell, the other half of this creative team. We’d also love to see you in the flesh at our book signing at Lemuria at 10 a.m.

If you are a regular reader, you know I’ve already done interviews at Writing Snacks and Teaching Authors. I hope you’ll follow my tour.

Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature received a positive review in Publisher’s Weekly.
“Besides being eye-catching, the photographs ought to prove invaluable for visual learners (spiral patterns in a pinecone are darkened for visibility). Kids should be left with a clear understanding of the pattern and curious about its remarkable prevalence in nature.”
Read the whole review here. Scroll about three-quarters of the way down the page.

In conjunction with the release of Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature (March 1), I have arranged some stops on a virtual tour. Today, I am visiting Mary Ann Rodman on Teaching Authors. I met Mary Ann when she came to Lemuria to sign her first novel, Yankee Girl. I invited her to Davis Magnet School a few times to talk about two of her books, My Best Friend and First Grade Stinks. She’s been an inspiration and generous with helpful advice and encouragement. I hope you’ll come over and read the interview. I included a few activities for using photography to teach writing.

Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature Site recommends Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature for teaching math concepts in elementary grades. Calling it “a great general exposure to patterns for the youngest students and a clear introduction to this crucial pattern for slightly older students,” Rebecca Hurst added our book to the Picturing Math guide for using picture books in teaching math. It appears in the patterns chapter, which is one of the sample chapters available online.

I began my artist-in-residence work today at Davis Magnet School. I am team teaching a unit titled, “Davis on the Map,” with second grade teachers Beth West and Kim Hansen. I introduced myself (many of these students were familiar with Wolfsnail because I read it to them last year on Read Across America Day), read my new book (Growing Patterns: Fibonacci Numbers in Nature), and introduced them to the work of Roland Freeman. We broke the students into four groups so we could have more interactive discussions. This meant I went through my talk four times back-to-back. I was tired by the time it was all over, but I enjoyed the students’ observations and questions.

How do you get a good picture when people are moving? (I actually misunderstood this question). I told the student that taking a good (clear, focused) picture of moving people depended a lot of having enough light. But that with enough light, the camera would be able to capture an image and freeze the action. He pushed me further, pointing out that in one of Roland’s photographs a drummer’s hand is blurry, making it a good picture of movement. In that case, Roland wanted the blur and made sure the aperture was open long enough for the camera to capture the hand in different spots along its movement.

Why did you use a drawing and a photograph in your book to show the spiral on the nautilus? I used the drawing because I wanted to make clear the connection between the Fibonacci numbers I had introduced at the beginning of the book and the way the spiral on the nautilus grows as its shell grows. I think the diagram of different colored squares makes it easier to see the how the Fibonacci sequence relates to the spiral in the photograph on the following page.

I do like the teaching/learning/inquiry practice the teachers at Davis employ. They have t-charts all around that have two columns labeled with two columns: I notice …. and I wonder …. As we talked, the teachers wrote down the students’ observations and questions on sticky notes and placed them in the appropriate columns on the chart. We will reflect on these as we go along in the unit. The students who weren’t with me spent their time working on two activities with some other teachers (gifted teachers and teachers’ assistants). They made frames and simple how-to manuals for the digital cameras they will use to photograph their neighborhood.

The next time we get together we will be taking a walk in the Davis neighborhood, gathering ideas about the people and places we will photograph.