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The Know-Nonsense Guide
The Know-Nonsense Guide to Measurements: An Awesomely Fun Guide to How Things are Measured!
Full of quirky illustrations, The Know-Nonsense Guide to Measurements teaches basic concepts about measurements, including the differences between the imperial and metric systems of measurement.
Fuzzy on feet, yards, and meters ? Bamboozled by bits and bytes ? Perplexed by the difference between mass and volume ? This Know-Nonsense Guide to Measurements will guide you through the basics of different ways to measure things, from length, volume, and mass to time and intensity, and will explain how to convert between the most common units. Packed with simple definitions (feet, yards, and meters are units of length used to measure midsize distances), memorable examples, and funny illustrations, this guide makes the rules of measurement easy to understand, and the handy conversion chart will make quick conversions easy! With every turn of the page, you will learn a new basic concept that will help you go from knowing nothing to being a total know-it-all!
Basic units of measurement you'll explore include feet, yards, meters, grams, bits and bytes, seconds, minutes, decibels, and more! You'll also learn the differences between the imperial system of measurement, which is used in the United States, and the metric system. The Know-Nonsense Guide to Measurements turns what can at times be dry topics into something approachable and fun through the quirky and hilarious illustrations and the infographic-inspired layouts.
Fuzzy on feet, yards, and meters ? Bamboozled by bits and bytes ? Perplexed by the difference between mass and volume ? This Know-Nonsense Guide to Measurements will guide you through the basics of different ways to measure things, from length, volume, and mass to time and intensity, and will explain how to convert between the most common units. Packed with simple definitions (feet, yards, and meters are units of length used to measure midsize distances), memorable examples, and funny illustrations, this guide makes the rules of measurement easy to understand, and the handy conversion chart will make quick conversions easy! With every turn of the page, you will learn a new basic concept that will help you go from knowing nothing to being a total know-it-all!
Basic units of measurement you'll explore include feet, yards, meters, grams, bits and bytes, seconds, minutes, decibels, and more! You'll also learn the differences between the imperial system of measurement, which is used in the United States, and the metric system. The Know-Nonsense Guide to Measurements turns what can at times be dry topics into something approachable and fun through the quirky and hilarious illustrations and the infographic-inspired layouts.
- GenresChildrensMathematics
64 pages, Hardcover
Published May 22, 2017
1 person is currently reading
32 people want to read
About the author
Heidi Fiedler
31 books3 followersWriter. Editor. Creator of Visualize Your Story: An Instagram Workshop for Writers and Editors.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 20, 2017
This is a very handy book which helps young people consolidate the learning they have from school in terms of all different types of measurements and scales. It addresses the fact that there are different units used across UK and America, which helps to get rid of some of the confusion - it's nice to see both ways addressed in the same book. There are some useful scaled drawings to put things into perspective. There's a whole load of useful info. and complementary images which makes this learning fun, and some conversion scales at the end of the book. I notice there is also a book from the same range about grammar - as a total English language nerd, I'd love to read this one too!
June 30, 2017
My public school library has always struggled to have fiction and non-fiction books with a mathematics focus it this book will help to build that weak area. The topic of measurement is covered using bright, contemporary illustrations, factual, yet humorous text, and great charts and real life application of the skill. Students in the target grades of 4-6 will get both basic and extension opportunities with this book. ( Review of digital ARC from Edelweiss)
June 5, 2017
Good for the General Idea of "Measuring"
When I first started this I wasn't terribly impressed. Switching back and forth between American and metric systems before clearly setting out each one seemed very confusing. So, just three sentences into the "Length" chapter, we learned that "a meter is 39.37 inches long", and that a yard is three feet. What? A "joke" about whose feet we were talking about didn't help. I've always found it helpful to just observe that a yard and a meter are nearly the same, but that a yard is broken down into 36 inches, grouped together at 12 inches to a foot, and that a meter is just broken down into a hundred shorter bits without any other names or groupings. This was not starting well.
And I guess it's hard to teach this when you don't know what your reader knows or doesn't know. An inch is a twelfth of a foot. Well, does your reader already know fractions? 39.37 inches. Does your reader already know decimals, and if not how is he going to get centi- and milli- and the like?
The good news is there's another way to approach this book that is very helpful. If you step away from American/metric lengths and distances and look at the bigger picture of "measuring" this book is an interesting and possibly helpful introduction to that bigger picture. Moving past simple short lengths we get to light years and astronomical units. Then we touch on volume and mass, distinguishing between the two. But then we measure other things. Clock time, calendar time and epic time are all addressed. Then we go further afield and we consider the Richter Scale, decibels, Scoville ratings, temperature systems, and even candles and volts. Bits and bytes are nowadays essential terms.
The story you start to get is that there a lot of things in the world to measure and a lot of ways to measure them. That's actually a neat concept, and opens up lots of other phenomena to measure and systems for measuring them. (In sailing, "breeze" is a technical term.) Viewed in that light, and if you are looking for something introductory, this is a nice find as a topic opener.
(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
When I first started this I wasn't terribly impressed. Switching back and forth between American and metric systems before clearly setting out each one seemed very confusing. So, just three sentences into the "Length" chapter, we learned that "a meter is 39.37 inches long", and that a yard is three feet. What? A "joke" about whose feet we were talking about didn't help. I've always found it helpful to just observe that a yard and a meter are nearly the same, but that a yard is broken down into 36 inches, grouped together at 12 inches to a foot, and that a meter is just broken down into a hundred shorter bits without any other names or groupings. This was not starting well.
And I guess it's hard to teach this when you don't know what your reader knows or doesn't know. An inch is a twelfth of a foot. Well, does your reader already know fractions? 39.37 inches. Does your reader already know decimals, and if not how is he going to get centi- and milli- and the like?
The good news is there's another way to approach this book that is very helpful. If you step away from American/metric lengths and distances and look at the bigger picture of "measuring" this book is an interesting and possibly helpful introduction to that bigger picture. Moving past simple short lengths we get to light years and astronomical units. Then we touch on volume and mass, distinguishing between the two. But then we measure other things. Clock time, calendar time and epic time are all addressed. Then we go further afield and we consider the Richter Scale, decibels, Scoville ratings, temperature systems, and even candles and volts. Bits and bytes are nowadays essential terms.
The story you start to get is that there a lot of things in the world to measure and a lot of ways to measure them. That's actually a neat concept, and opens up lots of other phenomena to measure and systems for measuring them. (In sailing, "breeze" is a technical term.) Viewed in that light, and if you are looking for something introductory, this is a nice find as a topic opener.
(Please note that I received a free advance ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)
June 27, 2017
As a parent, lover of science and self-professed bad ass cook I thought this book was great. It’s the perfect accompaniment to science classes for kids (and some adults) as it makes learning about the various ways we measure fun. Star Wars fans will appreciate the section on light years and parsecs so they can finally grasp what Han Solo is talking about! Since I cook a variety of Mexican dishes that require all kinds of peppers I liked the information on the Scoville scale because now it makes so much more sense – hopefully I’ll remember for future reference rather than use the ‘taste test and drown my mouth in milk’ method. The occasional bouts of humor thrown in like when they describe what unit of temperature birds use was adorable.
I felt the illustrations added another layer of fun and they fit perfectly with what the author was trying to teach. The colors are eye-catching and the characters were perfectly rendered to capture a child’s attention span.
It feels like this has the ability to be a great opener for kids to help them see math and science are not as scary as they might first appear.
I felt the illustrations added another layer of fun and they fit perfectly with what the author was trying to teach. The colors are eye-catching and the characters were perfectly rendered to capture a child’s attention span.
It feels like this has the ability to be a great opener for kids to help them see math and science are not as scary as they might first appear.
July 28, 2017
This is a fun guide to help anyone learn more about measurement. It’s goal is to help those confused at school, but things are explained in such a way to be helpful to anyone. It explains the differences between US, metric, and SI measurements. As well as talks about type of measurements that don’t come up often such as rings on a tree, and parsnips. A great book that should be in every library collection.
February 20, 2019
Not confining itself to just the more common measurements of length, volume, mass, and time, this book also explores intensity (of sound, spice, windchill – to name a few). Again, the book teaches while entertaining using fun illustrations and cool definitions.
Rating: A
Reading Level: Ages 8 to 12
Reread Level: 5/5
Thank you to Edelweiss for the digital review copy of the book. I was not compensated for my reviews. My thoughts were in no way influenced by the author or publicist.
Rating: A
Reading Level: Ages 8 to 12
Reread Level: 5/5
Thank you to Edelweiss for the digital review copy of the book. I was not compensated for my reviews. My thoughts were in no way influenced by the author or publicist.
July 14, 2017
Fun approach to discussion on a topic many of us find confusing: measurement. This quirky title may help bring the topic down to earth and lead to some good discussion. A fun way to introduce units on specific measurement topics, but also a great discussion starter on what kinds of things can be measured--how and why. This title offers some great opportunities to discuss homophones, homonyms, and puns as well as measurement and problem-solving, including the concept of scale (some illustrations helpfully point out that they are "not drawn to scale" and that that means "not actual size").
Review based on ARC provided by NetGalley.
Review based on ARC provided by NetGalley.
January 16, 2018
5 for 4.5. If more than 150 people rated this book and it still maintains a 4+ average, may lower mine to a 4.
A fun little guide it is overall, though I do highly suggest on page 14, write it as 0.4 AU for Mercury; because I had just spent 5 minutes confused for I completely missed the "." (It was written as .4 AU) and I was all like, Mercury is closer to the sun than Earth is; if we are 1 AU away from it, how is it that Mercury is 4 AU?, but that's just me.
A digitized ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
A fun little guide it is overall, though I do highly suggest on page 14, write it as 0.4 AU for Mercury; because I had just spent 5 minutes confused for I completely missed the "." (It was written as .4 AU) and I was all like, Mercury is closer to the sun than Earth is; if we are 1 AU away from it, how is it that Mercury is 4 AU?, but that's just me.
A digitized ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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September 24, 2017Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews