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I Hate Math Character Traits

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.3.3 Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their
actions contribute to the sequence of events

What is a Character Trait? A character trait describes the personality of a character, not
what they look like. Describe what your teacher looks like. Tall, short, brown hair, no
hair, pretty, handsome, gorgeous these words describe what a person looks like.
Describe how your teacher acts. She is generous because she gives us extra recess.
He is annoying because he always says, MYOB, mind your own business. Generous
and annoying are character traits because they describe your teachers personality.
Read the first two chapters of I Hate Math
Look at this list of Character traits:
Helpful, friendly annoying, knowledgeable, smart, responsible, bossy, caring, confident,
creative, friendly, hardworking, mean, generous
Write each character trait in the box you think best describes Becky or Juan most of the
time. If you think a trait equally describes Juan and Becky place that trait in the middle.

Juans character traits

Both Becky and Juans character

Beckys character traits

traits
Friendly

Pick one character trait and support your choice with text evidence.
Example:
Juan: I think Juan is
school.

friendly because

He said hi to Becky on the first day of

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Then explain how their actions contributed to the sequence of the text. (Sounds harder
than it is look at the example below)
Example: I think Juan is friendly he said Hi to Becky even though everyone thought
she was mean and then they became friends. (See its not that hard.. now you try.)
I think Juan is

I Hate Math
By Laura Eberle

Image courtesy of freedigitalphoto.net

Readability level 3.2

Chapter One
Its too hard

The third grade started out horrible for Juan. First, Juan got Ms.
Martin for a teacher. Everyone knew Ms. Martin was the meanest
teacher in the whole school. Next, Juan had to sit next to Becky
Owens. Everyone knew Becky was the meanest girl in the third grade.
Juan tried to be nice to Becky. On the first day of school Juan sat
down next to Becky and said, Hi.
Becky wrinkled her nose and turned away. That had been a week
ago and Becky still hadnt said one word to Juan.
Juan decided it was fine that Becky never talked him. After all
she couldnt be mean to him if she didnt speak to him. Becky could be
really mean. Just yesterday Becky was making fun of Ms. Right. Ms.
Right was their music teacher. On the way to music Becky made piggy
noises and said she heard Ms. Right was so fat because every night
she eats two kids for dinner. Some kids laughed but Juan didnt laugh.
He liked Ms. Right. She was nice and made music fun.
Third grade seemed a little better after the second week. Juan
found out Ms. Martin really wasnt that mean but she wasnt as nice as
Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen was Juans kindergarten teacher. Mr. Allen laughed
and played games all the time. Juan liked school then. School wasnt
horrible but he didnt like school. Reading was OK, but Juan hated
math.
Last year Juan didnt like reading but this year he started reading
chapter books. He was reading a book with cartoon drawings about a
super hero in underpants. He liked books now.

Juan hated math time. In the first week of School Ms. Martin
showed the class how to add big numbers together by regrouping.
Juan didnt get how to regroup at first but after a while he got the hang
of it.

First add your ones.

Five plus seven equals
twelve. Twelve has one
45
ten and two ones. Put
+ 37
the one up top and the
two down. Then add the
8 2
tens. One plus four is
five and five plus three
is eight. Finished,
Next his class started subtraction with regrouping. When the
number on top was too small he had to borrow. Subtraction with
regrouping was really hard. When Juan told Ms. Martin he didnt
understand. Ms. Martin said Juan needed to pay attention during math
time.
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Juan really was trying to understand. It was just so hard. He

looked at Becky Owens paper just to figure out what he needed to do.
Becky gave him a dirty look and turned her paper so Juan couldnt see
her answers. Juan wasnt trying to cheat. He wouldnt look at Beckys
paper if it were a test. He just needed to know what to do.

Subtracting was so hard when the number on top was zero. Ms.
Martin passed back their first subtraction test. Juan got seven out of
ten wrong. He turned his test over so no one could see the frown face
Ms. Martin drew next to his score. Becky left her paper face up on her

desk with the one hundred percent shining. Ms. Marin had put little
eyeballs in the zeros of her one hundred percent mark.

100%
Becky flipped Juans paper over. Before Juan could grab it back,
Becky had started to write on his test. You make the same mistake
over and over. Ill show you what to do.
Juan couldnt believe it. Becky had barely said two words to him
all month and now she was helping him. It turned out Becky could be
nice. She showed Juan how she remembered to regroup.
If the number is too little he needs to go to his neighbors house
and borrow a group of ten. If there is a zero next door then no one is
home. Keep going. When you find a neighbor that is home he will
give you a group of ten and he becomes one less. Then you go back
adding a group of ten and subtracting one until you are home. Now
you are ready to subtract. Just think if it is too small? Then borrow a
group of ten. Becky smiled
9

10 11

401
-362
3 9
Juan did OK on the next subtraction test he still got confused and
missed three problems. It was so hard when there were two zeros in a
row. Ms. Martin said they would continue to practice subtraction all
year long.
Just when Juan didnt think third grade math could get any worse.
Ms. Martin said everyone needed to learn all the multiplication facts
from zero to ten. Juan didnt know what multiplication facts were but if
it was harder than subtraction he was in big trouble.

Chapter Two
X Facts 0, 1, 2, 5, 10

Ms. Martin gave everyone a multiplication grid of numbers one to

ten.

X
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

1
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

2
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20

3
3
6
9
12
15
18
21
24
27
30

4
4
8
12
16
20
24
28
32
36
40

5
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50

6
6
12
18
24
30
36
42
48
54
60

7
7
14
21
28
35
42
49
56
63
70

8
8
16
24
32
40
48
56
64
72
80

9
9
18
27
36
45
54
63
72
81
90

Juan looked at his multiplication grid and sighed, There must be

over a hundred numbers to memorize.
Exactly one hundred, Becky answered.
How did you know that? Juan grumbled.
Its an array of ten times ten. The array ten times ten equals
one hundred. Werent you paying attention when Ms. Martin had us do
arrays? Becky questions.
I was paying attention and Im good at arrays. Its multiplication
I cant do. Juan said.
He was getting mad at Becky. Becky was so good at math
sometimes it made Juan feel dumb.
Multiplication isnt hard. If you can do arrays then you can do
multiplication.

10
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100

Becky wrote 8x2 on her paper. Then she drew two little boxes
wide and eight boxes down.

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

Ok count the boxes, Becky said.

Juan rolled his eyes and counted sixteen little boxes.
Sixteen. Juan announced.
You are right. Sixteen equals two times eight. If you dont want
to count each little box you can skip count by twos.
Skip count? Juan asked
Yes, you know 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, Becky reminded him.
12,14,16, Juan continued, skip counting is easy we learned
that in first grade.
Then you can multiply because multiplication is just skip
counting. Hold up a finger up for each skip count so you know what
number you are multiplying by. Two times one is two. See you have
one finger up. Two times two is four. You have two fingers up. Two
times three is?

Six, Juan said smiling and holding up three fingers.

I told you multiplication isnt hard.
Not hard for you, you are good at math, Juan said.
Becky looked like she might start to cry.
Becky being good at math is great. I wish I was like you, Juan
quickly added.
Becky slumped over onto her desk, Im Ok at math, its reading I
hate. Im in the baby reading group.
Your not in the baby group. Your in the yellow group, Juan
corrected.
Same thing, we read baby books for first graders. Becky
frowned.

Read with me during free time. Im reading a real funny chapter

book about a boy called Stink. You will like it.
I cant read that book it will be too hard for me. Becky
complained.
We can read it together and Ill help you if you get stuck, Juan
added.
At reading time Ms. Martin worked with the blue group so Becky
buddy read with Juan. Becky whisper read a page and Juan helped with
tricky words. Juan could tell Becky was a little embarrassed that so
many of the words in the book were tricky for her. After Becky finished
reading her page Juan started to read his page. Juan had trouble with
a word and Becky was able to help Juan sound it out.
Becky really liked Juans book.
I told you this was a real good book.

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I wish I could read books like this all the time. I hate yellow
books. They dont even have a story. They just have stupid rhythms.
Becky complained.
Jorge saw Becky and Juan reading together. He started making
kissing noises. Becky looked Jorge straight in the eyes and held up her
fist. Jorge stopped making the kissing sounds and made a face at
Becky.
During recess it was Beckys turn to help Juan. Becky asked Juan
multiplication facts while they played wall ball. Juan liked wall ball
even if he had to do math while he played.

Ms. Martin had them learn the zeros, ones, twos, fives and
tens multiplication facts first. At the end of the week they would take a
test to see if they knew them. Juan thought zeros were the easiest
because the answer was always zero. Zero times anything is zero
because no matter how many groups of zero you have you still have
nothing. Six kids with zero cookies equals zero cookies. Ten kids with
zero cookies still equals zero cookies. Ones were easy too because one
times any number will be the number. If you had one kid with nine
cookies there will be nine cookies or if you have one kid with six
cookies there will be six cookies altogether.
What is zero times nine? Becky asked as she served the ball.
Zero, give me a harder one, said as Juan smashed the ball back
to the wall.
OK, one times nine?
Nine.
Ones and zeros are too easy, Juan complained.
OK, how about nine times two? Becky asked.
Thats not fair we havent learned our nines yet, Juan said
slamming the rubber ball against the wall.
Becky quickly stepped out of the way in order not to get hit in
the face.

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You missed, my serve. Juan said.

You do know nine times two because you know all the two facts.
Two times nine is exactly the same as nine times two. If you like to
skip count by nines you can count nine twice or you can skip count by
two nine times.
Becky held up her fingers as she counted by twos, Two, four,
six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, eighteen. The answer is
eighteen.
Try six times two? Becky suggested.
Well Im not skip counting by sixes, Ill skip count by twos, Juan
held up his fingers as he skip counted, Two, four, six, eight, ten,
twelve.
The recess teacher blew the whistle.
One last one, a hard one. What is five times five? Beck asked.
Im good at fives. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five. Its
twenty-five, Juan skip counted.
They both ran to line up outside their classroom door.