Stories are something that most of us would have thoroughly enjoyed as children. Stories are a great stimulus for the development of language and literacy but also numeracy. When people think about story telling they often don’t think about the numeracy development which happens throughout. The discovering maths module has allowed me to understand some of the mathematical concepts which can be developed through story telling such as time, shape, size and colour. The use of mathematical language can also emerge through stories, examples of this could be in, out, behind. An important aspect of story telling is questioning as this supports the development of problem solving skills. For example, asking the children what they think might happen next in the story? What the character could have done differently?

Discovering maths has made me think about stories which can help develop and encourage enjoyment of mathematics. A lot of traditional tales can be used as a stimulus to develop numeracy and mathematical language.

‘Goldilocks and the three bears’ can help develop the mathematical concepts size and quantity. There is repetition with the sizes and quantities, the bowls, beds and chairs. Children can relate to the small bowl being for the small bear and the big bowl being for daddy bear which develops reasoning. This also helps develop mathematical language, ‘baby bears bowl is smaller than daddy bears’

There are also great follow up activities which can relate to numeracy development. A story sequence can be a good activity  to help children not only recall the story but put the key parts into order which again is developing numeracy skills and mathematical language.