October Book of the Month - Which One Doesn't Belong?

The October book of the month is one of my personal favorites, “Which One Doesn’t Belong.”  This book is by the same author of our November book last year, “How Many?” Which One Doesn’t Belong (WODB) is a simple idea with complex potential.  Author Dr. Danielson built this book to counteract traditional and often misleading shape books.  While simple in design and print, the ideas that can be generated with this book are as complex and deep as those discussing it.  The idea follows the old Sesame Street categorizing idea that one of the items in a set doesn’t belong, but the beauty of this book is that readers can make a case for each one of the items not belonging.  This book is a powerful, fun, and accessible way for students to think about attributes, categorization & classification, language/vocabulary, constructing arguments, and critiquing reasoning.   The beauty of the book is that once the routine of WODB is practiced, it can be utilized and applied over and over.  The social media world has embraced WODB and has created many sets to be utilized – across levels (preK-calculus) and outside math content (check out here, here, and here!)  They are also referred to as “Imposter sets” – which could open more results in an online search as well as #WODB. 

In my house my girls will find naturally occurring WODB sets (platters of fruit and fallen leaves have been recent discussions) - and we've also tried to create our own sets (its harder than you might think!) 

I strongly encourage families to engage in these conversations - as they are wonderfully supportive of many critical thinking skills, dialogue/discussion, and reasoning.