Arthur Geirsert presents roman numerals in way that is easy to understand for kids and even adults. The book explains all aspects of roman numerals: how they are written, what can and cannot be repeated, adding, subtracting, and what each one represents. The book gives students a proportional model of what each roman numeral stands for by using pigs. That is, one pig for Roman Numeral I, five pigs for Roman Numeral V, etc. This helps students to visualize the quantity that the letter is representing, making it easier for the student to understand and make connections. ( )

I thought this book was nice, but I don't think it will work that well for children, at least not older children. The book doesn't have many words and it doesn't explain what each Roman Numeral represents. This would make it very hard for the children to understand the counting. It does provide pages that include animals and objects that the students can count to figure out what each Roman Numeral represents, but this becomes hard with the larger numbers. It will take to long to count the animals or the objects to figure out what number it is. It is hard with Roman Numerals because there isn't really a trick to remember them, you just have to memorize what each number represents and then be able to add it all up to figure out what the number is.

I can say that the book certainly enables discovery because the children will have to figure out what a number is. The book could also be engaging for the reader, because the pages with the numbers where they are low enough to count, could engage the reader and encourage their curiosity about finding out what number the Roman Numeral written is. The book doesn't have a plot that grows from the characters' action, because there aren't any characters included in the book. Overall, I'm not sure how useful this book would be to use for math-related activities. ( )

This is a great book for visualizing numbers and learning about Roman numerals. Counting all of the pigs on the page could really help a kid solidify what the letter is representing in Roman numerals. It is an informative and interactive book. Perfect for kids already comfortable with counting to high numbers who are interested in familiarizing themselves with Roman numerals.

This book gives a straight forward introduction to roman numerals. It covers the symbols, adding and subtracting and then closes with a hidden picture search.

I liked this book. It is very simple and straightforward. It is very basic though and is just a quick overview. The illustrations are a bit farmer brownish though and need updating. Kids would not be pulled into them. If the illustrations were modernized, I would rate it a 5.

In the classroom, this book would be a great way to introduce roman numerals before doing a worksheet. It would be more interesting than the textbook for sure. The seek and find activity in the back would be a lot of fun. It gives a roman numeral and then an object, such as pig. You need to find that many pigs in the picture. You know you have the answer right if you find that number of pigs. As I mentioned before, updated pictures, perhaps using a mall, a school, a computer lab, or even an updated farm or at least better or more intriguing animals would push this book up to a 5 as the students would be more engaged. I can see 6th graders laughing at these pictures. Well, at least their emotions would be involved. ( )