The Bell Too Heavy to Weigh
The idea: weigh what you cannot lift by matching it to things you can count.
Read it
One story, three ways: Sprout for a new reader, Grower in short chapters, Reader as a full chapter book. Same plot, same ending.
Who is in this book
-
Inkling a child of the Green Names what she notices -
Glug Looking is not the same as knowing — check it from PourTots -
Fiddle You learn what a thing does by trying it — the playing is the learning from AweForge -
Evenly The same on both sides means level, and level means equal from TeeterTots -
Teeter The heavier side goes down — a balance tells you which is more from TeeterTots -
Beto a child of the Green Takes things apart -
Bop Count one at a time, every single one from CarryPals -
Loaf Ten ones squish into one ten, so a big count is tens and ones from CarryPals
Every recurring character has a short tune, so you can tell who is on stage before a word is said. The tunes play only when you tap, and the Reading Access sound switch turns them off.
The Honest Page
Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?
True
- A floating boat sinks lower when it carries more weight. If two loads make the same boat sit at the same waterline, they weigh the same. Source
- Seventeen baskets of twenty kilograms make 340 kilograms. With one more basket of twelve, that is 352, which is 48 under the limit of 400.
- Lương Thế Vinh (1441–1496) was a real Vietnamese mathematician. He wrote a book of mathematics that was used to teach and test students for hundreds of years. Source
- In Vietnam, schoolchildren read a lesson called Cân voi, Weighing the Elephant, about this trick; in today's Kết nối tri thức textbooks it is in third grade. Source
Stretched
- Lương Thế Vinh is said to have weighed an elephant this way, with a boat, a mark and a pile of stones. What we simplified: This is a giai thoại, a story told about a real person. Nobody wrote it down when it happened, and almost the same story is told in China about a boy called Cao Chong. The man is in ink; the story is in pencil.
- In the book the water stops exactly on Beto's line. What we simplified: A real boat bobs, so people read the line when the water is still and allow a little either way. A boat also has to be safe for the load; the ferryman checks that too.
Made up
- Brimwater, its talking frog, bunny, bear cub, bean and loaf, and the tiny hammer on the hull are made up. Never load or ride a boat without a grown-up.
Tell it back
Tell the story in your own words: who was there, what went wrong, and what they found out. Then a scriber goes on your belt.
On your belt: a scriber.
Use it somewhere else: make it level in TeeterTots · carry the tens in CarryPals
Your belt lives on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere.
Ring the hammer for someone
Pick this book for someone younger. The link carries only the book, and it will wait for them on the Green.