Little Barton Again

LITTLE BARTON AGAIN Little Barton Again comprises five short stories on Barton’s early experiences in school. Barton’s teacher uses novel ways to teach concepts in Geometry (plane shapes) and Number (fractions). There is a strong focus on developing vocabulary associated with these topics. In Shaping the World, Barton’s teacher introduces the four basic shapes to the class –square, rectangle, triangle and the circle. Barton and his friend take the challenges outside the classroom and discover that many shapes around them look like these basic ones. In I am not easy to forget, Miss challenges the class to look for similarities and differences among the basic shapes. The class is also thrilled to discover that all squares look alike but there can be many different types of triangles. They also note a most important relationship between the number of sides and the number of vertices on a plane shape. In Right Down the Middle, Barton and his friend share their ideas on the meaning of one half. They observe real objects in the environment that have been divided equally, and recognise halves around them. They discover that folding a square into two equal parts can be done in four different ways. In Half I am or Half I’m not, Barton and his classmates explore folding plane figures into halves in many different ways. Miss asks the class to write a poem on halves and once more, Barton rises to the challenge, producing a wonderful poem. In The Meeting, Barton comes up with a splendid idea based on what he had read in books. He read about children forming a club to enjoy many activities together such as play games, learn interesting things and doing community work. He can’t wait to present this idea to his friends when he next sees them.