Books in Painless Series series

This very approachable text combines instruction in parts of speech and sentence structure with down-to-earth examples, funny illustrations, and examination of some of the more amusing and peculiar words in the English language. A chapter on clear e-mail communication and etiquette is brand new in this edition, as are many of the author's challenging "Brain Ticklers." Her helpful chapter on how to edit a school paper has also been heavily revised and updated. Barron's popular Painless Series of study guides for middle school and high school students offer a lighthearted, often humorous approach to their subjects, transforming details that might once have seemed boring or difficult into a series of interesting and mentally challenging ideas. Most titles in the series feature many fun-to-solve "Brain Tickler" problems with answers at the end of each chapter.

Author, Curt Lader, has transformed the facts, figures and dates of American History into a lively and fascinating narrative. The full span of American history is covered, starting with Columbus's landing, then proceeding to colonization, the Revolutionary War against England, the formation of a new government, American growth and expansion during the nineteenth century, and emergence as a major world power in the present century.

Taking a light-hearted approach to numbers and their parts, the author, shows how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide fractions, demonstrates how to convert them into decimals and percentages, and presents puzzles and "brain ticklers" that students will enjoy solving. Barron's popular Painless Series of study guides for middle school and high school students offer a lighthearted, often humorous approach to their subjects, transforming details that might once have seemed boring or difficult into a series of interesting and mentally challenging ideas. Most titles in the series feature many fun-to-solve "Brain Tickler" problems with answers at the end of each chapter.

The author points out ways in which recognizing sound and letter patterns makes spelling easier. Also important are recognition of diphthongs, silent letters, compound and abbreviated words, contractions, homophones, homographs, prefixes, suffixes, and base words. "Brain tickler" problems challenge students' imaginations and test their learning progress. Barron's popular Painless Series of study guides for middle school and high school students offer a lighthearted, often humorous approach to their subjects, transforming details that might once have seemed boring or difficult into a series of interesting and mentally challenging ideas. Most titles in the series feature many fun-to-solve "Brain Tickler" problems with answers at the end of each chapter.

Titles in Barron's Painless Series are textbook supplements designed especially for classroom use by middle school and high school students. The approach of each title is an appeal to students who think that the subject is boring, or too difficult, or both. The authors, all experienced educators, take a light approach, showing kids what is most interesting about each subject, and how seemingly difficult problems can be transformed into fun quizzes, brain-ticklers, and challenging puzzles with rational solutions. Geometry becomes painless--and even fun--once students learn the subject's basic components and see how solving any geometric problem is fitting parts together to solve an intriguing puzzle. They learn the meaning of postulates and theorems, discover angles of all kinds, find the relationships that exist between parallel and perpendicular lines, and discover the characteristics of shapes such as triangles, quadrilaterals, and circles. The author introduces real-world geometry experiments to make concepts less abstract, offers study strategies, and demonstrates how mini-proofs are the first step toward understanding formal geometry proofs.

Titles in Barron's Painless Series are textbook supplements designed especially for classroom use by middle school and high school students. The approach of each title is an appeal to students who think that the subject is boring, or too difficult, or both. The authors, all experienced educators, take a light approach, showing kids what is most interesting about each subject, and how seemingly difficult problems can be transformed into fun quizzes, brain-ticklers, and challenging puzzles with rational solutions. In this volume, students learn to see patterns in math word problems, then compute with decimals, fractions, compare rates, and solve proportions. Then using everyday, real-world examples, they explore statistics and probabilities, and learn how math can actually predict future outcomes and events. Other areas of practical math are examined, with a final chapter that searches out problems and activities that can be found on the World Wide Web.

Designed for use in middle school and high school classrooms, as well as at home, books in this series transform subjects that are normally dreaded by many students. Painless books take light-hearted approaches to their subjects, while addressing topics that classroom texts never get to. Painless Speaking explores the uniquely human act of oral communication, including elements in our culture that shape the way we speak. It explores finding one's voice, understanding the basic unit of speech communication (an utterance), learning the art of conversation, reading aloud from fiction and nonfiction texts, and instruction in public speaking, which entails composing, practicing, and delivering a speech. Students will find guidelines for self-evaluation of a public speech.

Just about everybody knows that fractions are parts of a whole number--but how many of us remember the difference between a numerator and a denominator? Or know quite what to do with them? Painless Fractions was written especially for middle-school students, but can be helpful to just about everybody. (Let's face it: we all make occasional mistakes with fractions.) The author takes a light-hearted approach to teaching fractions. She defines all terms, then demonstrates the correct methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division of fractions, and shows how to convert them into decimals. Puns, puzzles, and "brain ticklers" add an element of fun to the process of mastering fractions. There are answers to all questions, and plenty of good advice for avoiding pitfalls when calculating with fractions.

The author points out ways in which recognizing sound and letter patterns makes spelling easier. Also important are recognition of diphthongs, silent letters, compound and abbreviated words, contractions, homophones, homographs, prefixes, suffixes, and base words. "Brain tickler" problems challenge students' imaginations and test their learning progress. Barron's popular Painless Series of study guides for middle school and high school students offer a lighthearted, often humorous approach to their subjects, transforming details that might once have seemed boring or difficult into a series of interesting and mentally challenging ideas. Most titles in the series feature many fun-to-solve "Brain Tickler" problems with answers at the end of each chapter.

Young students learn to comprehend the many uses of numbers as they engage in number games and fun-to-solve puzzles. Starting with counting, they advance to arithmetic, fractions, decimals, and the different ways of measuring. Teachers in grades 3 and 4 will appreciate the new Painless Junior Series of classroom helpers. Designed to resemble titles in Barron’s Painless Series— which are used in middle school and high school classrooms—the Painless Junior books feature larger page sizes, amusing illustrations, games, puzzles, and an approach to their subjects that reflects third- and fourth-grade curricula. Their purpose is to inject an element of enjoyment into subjects that many younger students find either boring or mystifying. Kids’ understanding will improve as they have fun learning.

Teachers and students in third and fourth grades will value this instructive and entertaining journey to Grammar World, where kids have fun while they develop their facility in correct English usage. Grammar World is a make-believe amusement park where boys and girls are introduced in chapter one to the animals who teach them about different kinds of sentences: statements and questions, commands and exclamations, subjects and predicates, combining sentences, and how to avoid fragments and run-on sentences. Chapter two takes kids to Grammar World's rides, where they learn about nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and several other parts of speech. Chapter three takes them to the Water Park, where they learn how to use verbs. Chapter four is a dolphin show, and explanation of prepositions, prepositional phrases, conjunctions, and interjections. The fifth and final chapter is a fireworks display, in which kids learn punctuation, capitalization, abbreviations, and other details that will help them write clearly and correctly.

Kids travel with Sammy Octopus on a reading and writing adventure. They are encouraged to try different methods of writing and see which way works best for them. They also learn the value of revising and editing, engage in activities that help them make good word choices, and get practice in descriptive writing, letter writing, report writing, poetry, and much more. Teachers in grades 3 and 4 will appreciate the new Painless Junior Series of classroom helpers. Designed to resemble titles in Barron’s Painless Series— which are used in middle school and high school classrooms—the Painless Junior books feature larger page sizes, amusing illustrations, games, puzzles, and an approach to their subjects that reflects third- and fourth-grade curricula. Their purpose is to inject an element of enjoyment into subjects that many younger students find either boring or mystifying. Kids’ understanding will improve as they have fun learning.