I thought I would share a new #Holiday those of you #Homeschooling your students might want to celebrate. The new #Holiday takes place on September 25 and it is Math Storytelling Day #MathStoryTellingDay.
math Storytelling Day is a Holiday I hadn’t heard of until today or I would have had Charlie study it when we were Homeschooling. Since learning should be done everyday even if our children aren’t in school Charlie and I will be exploring #mathStoryTellingDay. If you celebrate Math Storytelling Day leave me a comment and let me know how your celebrating it and why.
Math Storytelling Day is celebrated each year on September 25th many people, when they hear the word math, are often immediately uninterested. To be fair, math is a difficult skill to master and requires practice. But who said you can’t master math in a fun way? Math Storytelling Day encourages people to go beyond rote memorization and incorporate storytelling instead to develop more interest in the subject.
Math has been in existence since around 3000 B.C. and has evolved over the years. Some of the oldest math texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt date back to 2000 to 1800 B.C. Math is an extremely important subject for students hoping to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, or math.
However, without a natural liking towards numbers, the subject can get intimidating and scare people off. This is partly to be blamed on the way math is taught in schools across the globe. The emphasis on memorization instead of learning concepts and then applying them has done more harm than good.
Nevertheless, people have come up with various ways to make math the friend rather than the enemy. One such way is storytelling via math. Storytelling through math can be through games, storybooks, puzzles, videos, and a lot more.
The Natural Math Community created Math Storytelling Day in 2009. Dr. Maria Droujkova was inspired after reading a blog by Seth Godin on “What should I do on your birthday?” Dr. Droujkova decided that Math Storytelling Day should be shared with friends and family on her birthday, which falls on September 25th.
Interestingly, the first person to respond to her math stories was Sue VanHattum, who shares the same birthdate on September 25th. They wanted to encourage math storytelling in various forms and share it with people across age groups and social circles.
Did you know Math Storytelling Day has now been celebrated for over a decade and you can join in on the fun, too, by sharing your own set of stories to teach and make people love math. Remember math can be used in cooking which requires reading allowing you to celebrate Math Storytelling Day.
Math has been in existence since around 3000 B.C. and has evolved over the years. Some of the oldest math texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt date back to 2000 to 1800 B.C. Math is an extremely important subject for students hoping to pursue a career in science, technology, engineering, or math. However, without a natural liking towards numbers, the subject can get intimidating and scare people off.
This is partly to be blamed on the way math is taught in schools across the globe. The emphasis on memorization instead of learning concepts and then applying them has done more harm than good. Don’t you think it’s time to change that?
Nevertheless, people have come up with various ways to make math the friend rather than the enemy. One such way is storytelling via math. This can be through games, storybooks, puzzles, videos, and a lot more.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
