Performing Big Math Ideas across the Grades

A storied math context helps students engage both emotionally and cognitively with mathematics and helps show that mathematics develops out of human experience. Children's literature also models mathematical storytelling for students, and creates opportunities for them to retell and extend stor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inTeaching children mathematics Vol. 17; no. 8; pp. 486 - 496
Main Authors Gadanidis, George, Hughes, Janette M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published National Council of Teachers of Mathematics 01.04.2011
Subjects
Childrens Literature
Correlation
Investigations
Mathematical Concepts
Mathematics Instruction
Story Telling
Teaching Methods
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Summary:A storied math context helps students engage both emotionally and cognitively with mathematics and helps show that mathematics develops out of human experience. Children's literature also models mathematical storytelling for students, and creates opportunities for them to retell and extend stories. This article describes mathematics investigations that used four math stories as starting points for student activity: (1) "The Doorbell Rang" (Hutchins 1986); (2) "Stay in Line" (Slater 1996); (3) "Wolf Gets Hurt" (Gadanidis and Gadanidis 2009); and (4) "A New Home for Scruffy" (Gadanidis 2006). These stories deal with two connected big ideas: (1) the relationship between multiplication and division when using rectangular arrays to model numbers; and (2) the relationship between area and perimeter when exploring the possible rectangular arrays for a given perimeter or a given area. These big ideas can be addressed across grades, at different levels of mathematical sophistication. (Contains 8 figures, 1 table, and 3 online resources.)
ISSN:1073-5836
DOI:10.5951/teacchilmath.17.8.0486