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In Waldorf education, it is traditional to introduce most things—including the mathematical operations--with stories. I’ve heard of fairies, ponies, squirrels, or almost anything else for math. We decided to use gnomes, and D helped me to make them out of felt and wooden bodies I purchased from A Child’s Dream Come True (http://achildsdream.com/index.htm). This is a very fun store, with reasonable prices.
Here is a photo of o
ur gnomes. Besides the four operations, there is also King Equals and his treasurer Alpha. (The gnomes spend their time collecting jewels which they take to Alpha.) Not included in this picture is Omega ("Meg"), who is Alpha's wife. D and N thought that all of the math gnomes needed spouses.
Stay tuned for the further adventures of D and the math gnomes....
ur gnomes. Besides the four operations, there is also King Equals and his treasurer Alpha. (The gnomes spend their time collecting jewels which they take to Alpha.) Not included in this picture is Omega ("Meg"), who is Alpha's wife. D and N thought that all of the math gnomes needed spouses.
I have never heard about teaching math this way. Would you elaborate more on it and talk about how to get started? I really think that it sounds like a lot more fun than "normal" math...
ReplyDeleteThanks!
Krista,
ReplyDeleteMost of my ideas aren't original. My inspiration for this math unit was Marsha Johnson. She has an email group waldorfhomeeducators@yahoogroups.com. The "Files" section of that group is full of ideas, including what we have done for first grade.
Melisa Nielson is another of my Waldorf mentors. She has an entire book of math (http://alittlegardenflower.com/store/) for grades K-5, much of it using gnomes.
I'll try to post further (see my post about division), but these resources have a lot more than I could put on the blog.
I should add that the gnomes are also toys and good friends. D even loans them to his big sisters when they are struggling with their math assignments. Have fun!