WIXLIB

Life of FredEdgewoodStanley F. Schmidt, Ph.D.Polka Dot Publishing

A Note Before We Beginthe Fifth Book in the SeriesLife of Fred: Edgewood. You may be wondering, what’sEdgewood?Thinking of Life of Fred: Apples, you might wonder if Edgewoodis some kind of tree. It isn’t.Thinking of Life of Fred: Butterflies, Life of Fred: Cats, and Life ofFred: Dogs, you might suppose that Edgewood is some kind of insect oranimal. It isn’t.Edgewood is a place. Some readers (99%) might never have heardof Edgewood, Kentucky.WHAT IS EDUCATION ALL ABOUT?Years ago, when I was teaching a geometryclass in high school, I drew an isosceles triangle onthe board. (Isosceles is pronounced eye-SAUCE-alees.)One student raised his hand and objected,“Mr. Schmidt, we haven’t had isosceles trianglesbefore.”I told him, “It’s okay. It’s something new.”He evidently didn’t like the idea of learningnew things. By the tenth grade, he figured that therest of his life should just be a review of the things healready knew.Education is new stuff.Entertainment is hearing another rock band, watching another soap opera episode, or reading another murder mystery.Of course, there’s no law that says that learning can’t be both. It ismy hope that this book is both.7

MATHEMATICS AND FUN?YES!It depends so much on how it is taught. I majored in math when Iwas a student at the university. I got a C in some of the math classeswhere the teaching was poor.It’s possible to make almost any subject distasteful.Let’s do a littleteaching of . . .playing and see how we could mess up theMusic For a list of 213 symphonies, you are required to memorizethe composer’s name, the date of composition, the number of movements,and the key signature. The test will be next Monday. (We choose Mondayto ruin your weekend.)ArtFor a list of 213 paintings, etc.BaseballFor the 213 games that the Edgewood ballplayersplayed from 1996 to 1999, you are required to memorize the final scores ofeach of those games, and the batting order. The test will be next Monday.GermanHere is your vocabulary list of 213 words.makaber ghoulishder Galgen gibbetdenkwürdig memorabledas Verhältnis ratiomit hängenden Schultern stehen to slouchThe test will be on Monday.Pizza(This subject was hard to make boring. It took me several minutes tofigure out how to make the teaching of pizza anything but delightful.)Here is a list of some cheeses that begin with the letter G:Gabriel,Galette du Paludier, Galette Lyonnaise, Galloway Goat's Milk Gems, Gammelost, Gaperon a l'Ail, Garrotxa, Gastanberra,Geitost, Gippsland Blue, Gjetost, Gloucester, Golden Cross, Gorgonzola, Gornyaltajski, Gouda, Goutu, Gowrie, Grabetto,Graddost, Grafton Village Cheddar, Grana Padano, Grand Vatel, Grataron d' Areches, Gratte-Paille, Graviera, Greuilh,Greve, Gris de Lille, Gruyere, Gubbeen, and Guerbigny.For each cheese, write a 250-word report that details how thatcheese has been used in pizzas, its place(s) of manufacture, and currentprices in major cites around the world.8

On the other hand, learning is inherently fun. People love to findout new things. Some people will spend an hour each day watching orreading the news. Or watching quiz shows on television.HOW TO LEARN FROM THIS BOOKbook!Please have a pencil and paper available. After all, this is a mathMy daughter JillWrite out the answers to each Your Turn to Play before turning thepage and seeing my answers. Don’t just read the questions and look at theanswers. Not much learning happens when you take that shortcut.CALCULATORS?Not now. There will be plenty of time later (when you hit PreAlgebra). Right now in arithmetic, our job is to learn the addition andmultiplication facts by heart.9

ContentsChapter 1Wednesday Morning. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13when telephones brush your teethconcurrent linessquares, rectangles, parallelograms, etc.six billion (6,000,000,000)ordinal and cardinal numbersChapter 2Meeting Troubles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19difficulties when joggingobeying road signsevergreen and deciduous treesrhombusparallel linesChapter 3Facing Your Fears. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25winter weather in Kansas and warmth in Ecuadordefinition of functionconstant functionsChapter 4Where’s Edgewood?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Red Sea, Tripoli, Eritrea, Ireland, Scotland on a map“Zebra in Thought” by Kingiemedian averagestrapezoids“carrying the one” in additionChapter 5On the Bus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37getting exactly what we deserveKansas, Missouri, and Kentucky (heading east)cardinality of a setwriting numerals in words8609262942055 – 8609262942055 0Chapter 6Fame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43being famous is sometimes a big bothersolving 2x 5bar graphs10

Chapter 7Reading on the Bus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49bar graph of camels eatenmetamathematicsmath poetry to learn additionfinding a rhyme for seventeentrillioncoupletsstrait doesn’t mean straightChapter 8Bus Stop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55words for a tombstoneonly time in the history of the worldif Fred were a writer1,000 700Chapter 9In Missouri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61writing a biographyx 1the four emotionswhat can cause you not to think straightright anglesChapter 10A View from the Bus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67adding two-digit and three-digit numberslaws in different statesa Tyrannosaurus Rex was not part of the scenery6% in picturesChapter 11A Glass of Polka Dots. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73difference between polka dots and a bunch of dotsmathematicians playfinding patternsmatrix—rows and columnsfour sentence patternsone number, seven digitsChapter 12Sharing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79pronounsFyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevskyhalf hour and quarter hour11

Chapter 13Flying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85why you should fasten your seat beltmistakes—small, medium, and bigjogging 5 miles per hour for 2 hoursChapter 14Food and Warmth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91half dozen—computed three ways9,000 calories among 9 peoplegibbous moonsChapter 15Errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97two kinds of errors—Categories One and Twoconstellations and asterismsgun safetyfour signs of hypothermiavoluntary and involuntary actionsInternational Date LineChapter 16Warm. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103treating hypothermiabath tub toysfamily plays the Addition Game after dinnerChapter 17A Family. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109the flickering blue parent that offers no hugsthe Guess-a-Function gameChapter 18To Edgewood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115a moose with three feetone percentwhy it’s called Turkeyfoot Middle Schoolone way to feel lonelynorth and south on a mapChapter 19To KITTENS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121what it means to matriculatecounting by fivesIndex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12512

Chapter OneWednesday MorningFred loved the early morning. It was one ofhis seven favorite parts of the day. Todaywas the 1855 th day of his life.The sky was beginning toget light. Fred quietly got out ofhis sleeping bag and stood up.He thought of the day that he would be tallenough to bump his head on the underside of hisdesk. But today wasn’t that day. Fred wasmuch shorter than most five-year-olds.He walked quietly to the window. Hedidn’t want to wake his doll Kingie. The roomsmelled a bit because of the dogs that had beenthere. Opening the window, he let in some coolmorning air. From the third-story window of the mathbuilding, Fred could look out over the KITTENScampus. In the early morning light, the treeswere gray-green. For English majors: You don’t write: Opening the window, some cool air flowed in,because that would mean that the cool air opened the window.You don’t write: While brushing my teeth, the phone rang. That says that thephone was brushing your teeth.13

Chapter OneWednesday MorningHe put on a T-shirt, jogging shorts, socks,and running shoes and headed out the door. Hewalked quickly down the hallway past the ninevending machines (four on one side and five onthe other), down two flights of stairs, and outinto the semi-darkness of a February morning inKansas.Fred jogged through the campus. Hepassed the campus tennis courts and dreamed ofthe day he would be big enough to swing atennis racquet.He passed the university chapel where heattends Sunday school with the children of otherfaculty members.When he got to the place where TangentRoad, Archimedes Lane, and Newton Street allmet, he had to decide which direction to head.Lines are concurrentif they all meet at the same point.Fred decided to headto the right (east) onTangent Road. It was longand straight. He waswarmed up by now andchanged from jogging torunning.He felt the joy of being alive. As he ran themiles down Tangent Road, he let his thoughts14

Chapter OneWednesday Morningjust drift. It was a little like dreaming whileyou are awake.aaaaa He thought of the Wizard of Oz play hehad been in when he was in kindergarten.aaaaa He thought of the kitty that he hadowned on Monday.aaaaa He thought of his geometry class andhow he would present all the quadrilaterals(four-sided figures) in class today:aaaaa When he saw the trees on TangentRoad, he thought of lines from a poem he hadmemorized:What can nestlings doIn the nightly dew?Sleep beneath their mother’s wingTill day breaks anew.If in field or treeThere might only beSuch a warm soft sleeping-placeFound for me! From Christina Rossetti’s “A Chill.”15

Chapter OneWednesday Morningaaaaa He thought that none of thosequadrilaterals would make “a warm softsleeping-place.” They were too pointy. Instead,a nice ellipse made out of silkfilled with cotton balls wouldbe a nice place to snuggle.Fred liked to run east onTangent Road. He could see the dawn of thenew day. This was his new day but he waswilling to share it with the seven billion otherson the planet. (7,000,000,000. Nine zeros.)Fred liked the idea of sharing. He sang outa happy “Good Morning” to each animal or plantthat he passed along the road:Good morning Ant!Good morning Butterfly!Good morning Carrot!Good morning Dove!Good morning Eagle!Good morning Frog!Good morning Giant,long-tailed, big-toothed,two-horned monster.16

Chapter OneWednesday MorningPlease take out a piece of paper and write down the answers. Thenturn the page and compare your answers to mine.You will learn a lot more by writing down your thoughts than justreading the questions and then looking at the answers.Please.Your Turn to Play1. Just for fun . . .Fred was creating a whole alphabet using animalsor plants. He started with: ant, butterfly, carrot, dove,eagle, frog.Instead of Giant, long-tailed, big-toothed, twohorned monster, he might have said hello to ageranium or a goldfish or a groundhog.Finish his list, starting with a plant or animalstarting with H and going all the way to Z.You may need a little help when you get to U and X.The umbrella bird can be foundHi!in South America.There is a frog found in thestreams of southern Africacalled a xenopus. Pronounced ZEN-neh-pess.2. This is the 1855th day of Fred’s life. Ordinalnumbers are numbers such as first, second, and 1855th.Fred is 1855 days old. What are numbers such asone, two, and 1855 called?17