This article has been written by storytelling specialists, Tonya and Natasha, from Little Creative Days
Not all of us find maths an easy subject but with the help of a good story, maths can be lots of fun for everyone.
We all learn differently; some like to learn visually, some are quite tactile whilst others may be more aural or kinaesthetic. By combining stories and creative activities as a way of introducing maths, you’ll guarantee to help all of the children in your setting making learning maths a whole lot more fun and very interactive!
So what stories can you use?
Handa’s surprise is a great story to help children learn about subtraction and counting to 7. If you use the wooden character pack the children can follow the story and interact with it.
Alternatively, you could decorate a plastic bowl to represent Handa’s basket and then get the children to create the fruits using sponge fruit shapes. Each child then takes it in turns to carry the bowl and the rest of the group can take the fruit from the bowl. End with them putting all the tangerines into the bowl counting them as you go.
You can also get the children to take it in turns to take one of the imaginary fruits from the bowl. They can pretend to eat the fruit and act out what it would taste like. This is also an important storytelling skill; showing your audience through acting out what you can see in your mind.
By using a simple story you have got the children learning some simple maths and boosting their storytelling skills at the same time.
So the next time you pick up a book to tell the children a story, why not also look for opportunities to incorporate some maths as well?
Little Creative Days
Tonya and Natasha, the storytelling sisters, are authors of a series of books about a little dog called Pojo who gets itchy paws and goes off on adventures.
They have won multiple awards for their puppet making kits that accompany the stories. This includes Teach Early Years Excellence award for Communication and Language Resource.
