Practicing the art of Seeing Mathematics all around
- Frédérique and the Wooden Fellows
After a month on Questioning and a month on Imagining, the wooden Fellows went back to one of their favorite quests: showing anyone and everyone that mathematics is indeed all around.
Why do the wooden Fellows enjoy mathematics so much? Because mathematics is a language to explore the world further, beyond words, and when you are a little wooden Fellow, you cannot wait to explore the world further.
Haven’t met the wooden Fellows yet?
Discover who they are here and where they come from!
First, A refresher around early mathematics
As a start, we invite you to revisit our previous posts on early math and how young children can engage in mathematical thinking that goes far beyond counting.
–> Early mathematics: our whole series
In our series, we explore the concept of number and operations, and how counting is much more complicated than it sounds. We also discuss how young children love numbers, especially big ones. They can also be easily involved in story problems, such as how two dinosaurs joining three dinosaurs would make five dinosaurs altogether.
We discuss measurement, such as length, volume, but also time, or geometry and spatial sense. How fun to look for shapes and make maps! Why is it a triangle? How do you know?
Early algebra turns out to be far less scary when we understand that it connects to rules and patterns, something so many young children love spotting everywhere.
Finally, we talk about data representation, with a beloved activity inspired by Madame Rigolotte’s joy of sorting buttons. And then, taking it one step further, the joy of being a tiny data collector. Never too early!
Then, start noticing the math around you!
Just like the wooden Fellows in the past four weeks, we invite you to discover where math hides in your world. To make it more playful, we created “bingo cards”.
Go explore, observe, and when you have found or thought about what the square asks, mark it off.
Work your way across, down, or diagonally to get five in a row, or challenge yourself to fill the whole card!
We created two versions, one for little ones, and one for not so little ones, so you can hunt for math across generations.
If you manage to find, notice, and think about every single square, we want to hear about it. Send us a message telling us your favorite discovery from the card, the wooden Fellows can’t wait to hear what you noticed! The first ten people to reach out will even get a bookmark from the wooden Fellows!
Finally, let's enjoy some of the treasures found by the wooden Fellows
Throughout the month, the wooden Fellows went on a shape hunt, a pattern hunt, and even became engaged with data collection, when Mme Rigolotte took her recorder and ask “When you think of imagination, what comes to mind?. If you haven’t given a clip board to a child and encourage them to ask questions to beloved ones, give it a try, you will be surprise by what you see, and hear!
What questions do you have for them? The wooden Fellows are always listening and are always eager to come back to you!
Want to go deeper? Here are some "Homework" before we go!
1 . Take some time to complete your bingo card. Math is a journey, not a race! If you have any issues marking off any of the squares, reach out to Mme Rigolotte, she will be delighted to help : )
2 . If you have young children around you, as a parent, grand parent, educator, community member, start a notebook, and note, once a day, a math opportunity you could share with them — a large number near the house, a pattern in a flower, or think about a question you could ask all together as a data scientist teams!
3 . Finally, Maurice found an old video his Human friend (me!) created some time ago about early mathematics. It is the first one of the series of several on early math. Stay tuned!
Wrapping up and introducing next month!
And so, March comes to a close at the Petit Refuge. We explored patterns, shapes, data, and measurement, not with worksheets, but with a recorder, a pipe showing us that cylinders are quite a common shape to spot, a bingo math card to keep us engaged, and so much more. Mathematics is indeed all around; you just have to slow down and look.
April will be around Art. Just as we see mathematics as a language, so do we with art i.e., a language that goes beyond words, allowing us to express our emotions through painting, music, sculpture, photography, and so much more.
Stay tuned!
