The math stories unit has become a staple of the primary grades curriculum in the STEM lab. One of the many things I love about my work in the lab is that I get to tear down the walls between the core subjects. Too often each subject, math, reading, science, etc., ends up in what I think of as the Knowledge Zoo where each one is isolated from the others, and no mixing is allowed. This is, of course, completely out of step with reality where each subject is inextricably wound up in all of the others. Students are genuinely taken aback when a teacher tries to incorporate some ELA into a math lesson. (The severity of this problem struck me when I got the chance to teach self contained 3rd grade after years of departmentalized math and science. I told my students it was time for math and then introduced a picture book to open the lesson only to have a student interrupt with, "I thought we were doing math now". One of the founding purposes of the STEM lab was, and continues to be, helping students discover connections between the various "core" subject areas.
The books for each year's math stories unit are always a little different, though there are a couple of regulars. We always read The Greedy Triangle and Rooster's Off to See the World. How Big is a Foot? and Inch By Inch are regulars as well. I try to mix it up with the math concepts represented in the stories every year. Our transition to 1 week blocks (as opposed to the 2 week blocks we used to have) has made story selection a real challenge. With so many wonderful books to choose from, how does one narrow it down to 4 or 5?
At any rate, I always enjoy the math stories unit and the students seem to enjoy it as well. This year first grade read The Greedy Triangle, The King's Commissioners, How Big is a Foot?, and Grandfather Tang's Story. Kindergarten read Inch By Inch, Rooster's Off to See the World, Two of Everything, and The 512 Ants on Sullivan Street. These books touch on concepts of geometry, measurement, doubling, skip counting, and number sense. Students made pictures with tangrams and paper triangles. They modeled doubling with counters. They estimated lengths and used inch tiles to measure for the actual figure. The pictures do not truly capture the fun and excitement, but they hopefully give and idea of what we have been up to.
