Use the muses for math - story-making activities that boost kids' math skills

Five story-making activities that boost kids' math skills

Using story-writing to teach math gives children a chance to play with mathematical processes in a low-pressure way. It also gives you a new assessment tool: By encouraging children to apply math concepts within a narrative, you gain another window through which you can see just how well they understand the concepts.

The activities here, developed with the help of Michael Bass of Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., can be easily incorporated into your math program, whether you're teaching kindergartners to count or introducing geometry to upper-elementary kids. (For more about math and writing, see "Marilyn Burns Answers Your Math Questions," page 38).

ACTIVITY I: NUMBERS WITH PERSONALITY

If 5-were a person, what would he or she be like? A roly-poly chef? A famous opera singer? Numbers seem less intimidating to children when they can turn numerals into friendly characters.

Write the numeral 5 on the blackboard and sketch a few details to make it resemble a person. Have each student write a numeral on a piece of paper, and then squint at it, or turn the paper upside down, to discover a person peering back! Tell kids it's like seeing things in the clouds; they'll have to use their imaginations. After children personify their numerals, they can write brief character sketches about them. One girl I taught gave the number 7 a top hat and a wand and declared him a magician. One boy created a story about triplets in a buggy being pushed by their mom--whose name, of course, was Mrs. 3!

ACTIVITY 2: COUNTING WITH A MYTHICAL BEAST

Long ago and far away, there was a beast who always found things in surprising places: One doughnut in the mailbox, two yellow shoes on a dog, three bananas in the bookcase, four top hats in a true.... You get the idea. Children can practice counting, adding, and subtracting by writing their own stories about this mythical beast. Have students use their stories to explore these questions: When the beast stops to count, how many items will it have? How many ways can the beast arrange these items in sets? (For example, my beast--affectionately known as Hildegarde--groups things you eat, things you wear, and yellow things.) But what happens if the beast eats or loses one or more items in the story? How many will be left?

ACTIVITY 3: HOW RATIOS CAME TO BE, AND OTHER TALES

"Who invented this stuff, anyway?" I've heard students lament as they struggle with division or ratios or fractions. Next time your students sing these blues, agree with them! Why would anybody invent this stuff? As a class, brainstorm a list of practical uses that various math processes have. Ask everyone to write stories about the day that long division (or whatever) was invented, and how the invention changed things forever ("Long division was invented when King Dividorf ordered his wizard to divvy up three villages among seven squabbling heirs ..."). This activity can be used as a starting point for fascinating research into how people today use math in their professions.

ACTIVITY 4: FAR-OUT NUMBER SYSTEMS

To help students understand our base-ten number system (which, of course, developed from the fact that humans have ten fingers and ten toes), have them imagine a planet where the inhabitants don't use base ten. Tell students: Pretend you're a stranded astronaut who has to deal with base seven, or three, or nine. How would life be different on this numerically newfangled planet? How many fingers and toes do the inhabitants have?

ACTIVITY 5: GEOMETRY HOUSES Kim Joyce of Northwood Elementary, in Hilton, New York, shared her secret for introducing geometry to her fifth graders: First, explore and define various geometric shapes. Then divide the class into small groups. Have each group choose a location (a desert, a mountain region, a city, a northern sea coast, and so on) and ask students to design the house of their dreams for that environment. After considering the overall design as a group, each student designs a single room. The student should combine geometric shapes in ways that are both aesthetically pleasing and practical. Encourage children to think about room size and shape, paths of movement through and out of the room, windows and lighting, and so on. Children can then use these settings as back-drops for stories of their own invention. Remind them that details about the houses will enrich their stories.

TECHNOLOGY CONNECTION

Your students can create volumes of math stories with Chickadee Software's EasyBook, a new kids' publishing program. Students create pages with text and graphics, and the program prints them out on both sides of the paper in exact page sequence. Just fold in half and read! (Macintosh Plus or later, with printer, $59.95 suggested retail price; |603~ 253-4600)

DR. CYNDE GREGORY, author of Childmade: Awakening Children to Creative Writing, works with thousands of children and teachers annually in workshops and residency programs.

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