Math Made Fun

Chapter 1

The Math Fair’s Missing Numbers

Maya Alvarez hurried into the Ridgeview Elementary gym with a roll of blue tape in one hand and a box of number cards in the other. The gym smelled like fresh popcorn and floor polish. Bright paper stars hung from the basketball hoops.

She stopped beside the Math Fair board. It was supposed to be covered with colorful numbers. Instead, it was blank.

“Blank?” Maya said.

Her friend Leo set down a basket of foam blocks. “The fair opens in ten minutes.”

Maya looked across the busy gym. Tables held puzzles, dice games, measuring cups, and block towers. Families were already lining up by the doors. Without the board, no one would know where to begin.

A small card lay on the floor. Maya picked it up.

“Start with the number that comes after 24,” she read. “Find it where towers touch the sky.”

“The block table!” said Leo.

They hurried there. Maya counted the blocks on the tallest tower. Twenty-five. She found a card tucked beneath it. But the card said, “Add ten.”

Maya placed it near the tower. “Thirty-five?”

Leo shook his head. “The next clue might be somewhere else.”

They searched under a red game mat, beside the giant dice, and behind a basket of rulers. Each place was noisy. Dice bounced. Chairs scraped. Someone rang a tiny bell.

At last, Maya sat on the floor and spread out the cards. The numbers were 25, 35, and 45. She tapped the cards with her finger.

“They keep going up by ten,” she said. “We were looking for places, but the numbers are giving us a pattern.”