Book Review: Maria Orosa

Maria Orosa was a freedom fighter, scientist and inventor from the Philippines, as the subtitle of a children’s biography about her by Norma Olizon-Chikiamco describes her.

Born in 1893, Orosa was the fourth of eight children, and her father helped in the resistance to American occupation of their country after Spain’s rule there came to an end not long after she was born. She loved science and studied pharmacy at the University of the Philippines, then traveled to America where she studied chemistry.

Upon returning to her home country, she worked as a teacher and a scientist, and eventually led the country’s food preservation office, using techniques she learned in the United States to teach people to preserve their native foods like mangoes, pineapples and jackfruits. She also invented cassava flour and banana ketchup.

She and her “girls” developed hundreds of recipes using native fruits and plants, and she also invented a clay oven that allowed people to cook without electricity.

Like her father, she also helped freedom fighters. When the Japanese invaded the Phillippines in 1941, she sneaked food into prisoner of war camps inside hollow bamboo poles. She refused to flee Manila and was killed when an American bomb hit her lab.

The book tells her story in biographical form and includes memories from some of her relatives who knew her. The book also includes a recipe for freedom cookies, which were also shared with prisoners during the war and are credited with saving many lives. Read the book and make the cookies and talk about different ways that people can make a difference no matter what their skills are.

Maria Orosa is a lovely and inspiring book about using your talents and standing up for what is right.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2024 by Tuttle Publishing. Suggested retail price $16.99.

A classic manipulative in the preschool and early elementary classroom is the snap cube, also known as math cubes, unifix cubes or unit cubes. These little one inch cubes often come in a set of 100 in 10 different colors, and they snap together so they’re easy to use for all sorts of math learning, measuring and more.

No Time for Flashcards has a cute robot printable to use with cubes to measure the height of each robot. That one is free but they also have other printable cube mats that are a paid resource.

Catherine & Co uses math cubes to teach kids about measuring volume. They make a letter from cubes and then measure the volume (there’s a printable worksheet in the post).

Pattern recognition is another fun and easy activity you can do with the cubes. You can use printables like these from Planning Playtime, or just make a pattern from cubes and have kids repeat it or figure out what comes next. There’s another good set of pattern printables at English Created Resources.

Because there are 10 sets of 10 cubes in a pack, these are great for teaching one to one correspondence, counting, sorting and basic addition and subtraction. English Created Resources has great printable number mats you can use to form the number from cubes and count out the number of cubes that corresponds to that number.

ParenTutor has a great collection of snap cube activity ideas, most of which are just pictures, but it’s work taking a look through the post for ideas for using them at home or in the classroom.

To give just a few of their examples, you can match linked blocks to the corresponding number of pieces, use blocks to find different ways to add up to 10, compare numbers and determine which one is more or less, skip counting and weighing different numbers of blocks.

You can also use unit cubes to learn letters, like with these super cute alphabet mats from Fun Learning for Kids. Kids can trace the letter, make it out of cubes and practice writing a word that starts with that letter.

Of course you can also use them to build things, since they are blocks, and there are tons of pattern mats on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also love these dinosaur themed mats from Lets Go to Learn on Etsy.

Have you read?

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