In Waldorf education, we use a math story to introduce new topics in grades one through to six.
I like writing my own stories as I feel this works better than using ready-made stories.
The main reasons behind writing my own stories is:
- It allows me to incorporate the interests of the children,
- This in turn makes the story more inviting and engaging for them,
- I feel more enthusiastic retelling a story that I have a connection with.
Using creative methods such as a story to teach maths, also enables us to avoid head or intellectual learning. Head learning is the delivery of facts and ideas, as we see in mainstream education. Children are usually required to memorise these facts and tested on their ability to retain this information.
According to Steiner, limb-learning is the preferred form of learning. To better understand this, think about a time you were excited, frustrated or angry. This emotion will have been felt throughout your body. Similarly, with a math story we can use emotion to create feeling. Thus, allowing the story and mathematical concept to penetrate and live throughout the child's body.
To learn more about mathematics lessons in accordance with the Waldorf philosophy, visit Waldorf Math Curriculum - Grade 2.
The important features of a Waldorf math story
Waldorf maths stories should be:
- Well written and make use of sophisticated vocabulary.
- Include plenty of description so children can create mental images and immerse themselves in the story.
- Convey the truth – you can’t have a field full of flowers in the winter or a sedentary bird migrating.
- Captivate the child’s interest so they listen intently.
- Communicate the mathematical concepts in a clear manner.
Writing style for a Waldorf math story
One of the goals of Waldorf storytelling, is to help children develop strong verbal communication skills. In order to do so, we must expose them to more complex language. Although many adults worry that children will not understand a story that uses unfamiliar vocabulary, this isn't necessarily true. I have found that children use context to infer the meaning of words they are unfamiliar with.
To write well, you will need to read lots of well written children's literature. Looking back at stories I wrote a few years ago, I realise how much my writing has improved. As I have said, the only way to do this is through ample reading and writing practice and that's exactly what I have done.
If you are looking for writing inspiration, a good starting point is Enid Blyton. I personally love Enid Blyton's ‘Secret Series’[i] because it is full of descriptive writing and contains just a few pencil sketches (although this may depend on which version of the book you purchase).
Stimulating the Imagination through a story
If you are looking to stimulate a child's imagination, books without pictures are an invaluable resource. This is because a pictureless story encourages children to create their own mental images. In doing so, they make use of, and further develop their imagination.
The preference amongst a large number of Steiner practitioners is to use text without images. In the school I used to teach at, there were two forms of storytelling - oral tales and books.
With regards to the books, at any point during the year teachers would have a story book they were using to read aloud to the children. As children would be listening to the story being read by the teacher, they had no pictures to go with it.
Similary with the oral tales, there was also an absence of images although, this happens naturally. To elaborate further on oral tales, these are stories told from memory and are usually accompanied by a simple chalkboard drawing.
Overall, both of these storytelling methods leave a lot of room to nurture and develop the child’s imagination.
Life sciences in a Waldorf math story
Embedded within Enid Blyton’s Secret Series, you will find lots of life sciences. In book 1 of the Secret Series, ‘The Secret Island’, she talks about plants in many different ways. In the same book, Blyton also talks of animal rearing and creative ways to store animal produce outdoors in nature. Blyton’s stories are informative, engaging and seamlessly weave in a huge amount of teaching.
Rudolf Steiner in Practical Advice to Teachers, has said:
‘Before fourth grade, the life sciences are presented to the children through nature and seasonal stories, through practical activities such as gardening, farming, harvesting, and cooking and through such main lesson topics as clothing and housebuilding.’
To offer familiarity and build a connection between the child and the story, I include nature within every math story. Nature is familiar and relatable to Waldorf children, because it is one of the dominant themes within the pedagogy. When making use of nature in my stories, I have used it to develop the landscape and assist children with picture building. At other times, it has served a deeper purpose and I have used it for educational purposes within the story.
In conclusion, I recommend including some life sciences either for description, familiarity or educative purposes within all of your stories.
Incorporating education of the heart and hands when writing a Waldorf math story
In Steiner education, we work with the Head (thinking), Heart (feeling) and Hands (willing) of a child, to give children a whole-body experience.
When writing a math story, we are concerned mainly with the feeling or heart aspect of the whole-body experience.
In Lecture One of Practical Advice to Teachers, Steiner says, ‘Try not to tell the stories in a way that causes children to reflect and understand them in the head. Tell them in a way that evokes a kind of silent, thrilled awe (within limits) and in a way that evokes pleasures and sorrows that continue to echo after the child has left you, gradually to be transformed into understanding and interest.’
To implement Steiner's guidance in the context of a math story, we must come up with a story line to begin with. Within this story line, we then weave in the mathematical concept and make sure it fits coherently in to the story. The problem we encounter in case the mathematical concept stands out is, it will lead to head learning. That's because, it will become very obvious to the children that this is the learning component of the story.
When elaborating on your story line, you can use the following points to help evoke emotion within the reader:
- Make sure the characters within the story are relatable to your child/ren
- Clearly describe the emotions felt by characters in your story
- Make use of facial expressions, body language and behaviour. 'Tip toeing towards the kitchen' for example, creates suspense, fear and excitement.
- Spend time setting the scene to build up towards more intense emotions
A Snippet From My Place Value Math Story
Loki was great at climbing trees and the tall and mighty oak tree nestled in the middle of the forest was his favourite. It had a thick trunk with lots of chunky branches growing off the central trunk, each of which had numerous thinner branches of their own. Imogen thought the Mighty Oak looked like a sea monster, with eight ginormous tentacles and the three hollow bits on the chunky branch growing out from the front of the trunk, looked like eyes to her. The eyes were enclosed by thicker wrinkly bark, giving the illusion of eyelids. Imogen sat on the branch closest to the ground and teased and whistled a spooky ‘ooooooooooo’ each time she looked up at her brother.
In Conclusion...
When writing a Waldorf math story, you can use the mnemonic 'DELL' to help remember the key points and guide your writing
D - description (lots of it)
E - emotion (through the character and scene setting)
L - life sciences (local nature and including examples of gardening, farming, cooking etc.)
L - language (making use of rich vocabulary - you can use lists to assist you)
If you have any questions, please leave a comment on the post.
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[1] https://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/secret-series.php
