This website hosts a growing collection of math stories. Math stories feature 1st graders Sophie and Norman, good friends who find themselves in situations – often at a farm stand – where they have to help adults solve a math problems. Each story contains a set of problems that grow increasingly difficult. Stories take several days to read and work through.
The mathematics varies from story to story. Each story presents opportunities to engage in a variety of mathematical practices and reasoning. Special about the stories is that learners imagine themselves in the situation with Sophie and Norman. Learners understand the problems and are able to make connections between the math they are learning in school and their informal understanding of number and quantity.
The stories are designed to serve multiple purposes. They teach math skills and ideas. They support learners in their next steps as mathematical thinkers. They highlight problems that have more than one correct answer and that can be approached in many different ways. The stories create meaningful learning zones for a wide range of learner capabilities and support productive mathematical discourse in the classroom. Importantly the stories support a positive math identity – the sense that “I am a math person” – most especially for learners who are in danger of deciding otherwise.
To Come:
Teacher’s Guides, community framework, examples of student work, and much more! Additionally, we are working on polishing and uploading more stories.