Is there a book you would like to use in your future classroom?

Yes! I would love to use the book “What’s your angle Pythagoras?” by Julie Ellis. I know this is considered a children’s book, but the math content is middle school level. I think it is a fascinating fictionalized story about how the Pythagorean Theorem was discovered. I think it would be a great tool to use when introducing the Pythagorean Theorem. Also I would like to be able to set up a math classroom where math is discovered and not preached. What I mean is I want my students to know that there is more than one way to the right answer. I often got in trouble in math for getting the right answer but using a different method. I think this book will provide an interesting gateway for students to get the main concepts of the theorem before every really getting the theorem. The students will get a demonstration of discovering the theorem, and begin to understand how the length of the hypotenuse depends on the height and length of the other two sides. I can then set the students up with a problem and ask them to guess what the length of the hypotenuse is by what they learned from the story. After the students have spent some time discussing and discovering, I can introduce the actual mathematical theorem.