Reggio-Inspired Mathematics

BCRIM Book Club: Mathematizing Children's Literature

This year we read the book Mathematizing Children's Literature: Sparking Connections, Joy, and Wonder through Read-Alouds and Discussion by Allison Hintz and Antony T. Smith. Both authors are professors at the University of Washington in Bothell with Allison's focus on mathematics education and Tony's focus on literacy education.

We held three cross-district Zoom sessions and district and school groups met in-between these sessions to collaborate and share books and ideas.

For our first Zoom session, we were fortunate to have authors Allison and Tony join us and share some of their favourite children's books and mathematical connections.

One framework we also considered when thinking about the stories we chose to read with our students is Indigenous Storywork. You can find out more about Dr. Jo-ann Archibald and her work on the Indigenous Storywork website HERE. We discussed the importance of using authentic resources when sharing Indigenous stories, learning about the author/s and illustrator/s and the region from where the story is from as well as considering different types of story structures and the Storywork principles. The Storywork principles are respect, responsibility, reverence, reciprocity, holism, inter-relatedness, and synergy.

In-person sessions focused on sharing new books we had found, sharing what we had tried, and collaborating to think of ways to engage with the instructional structures and frames provided in the book.

 

Thoughout the year, teachers in the project added to our book club padlet which you can find HERE.

 

Here are the book experiences some of the educators in our group wrote up to share:

Download BCRIM Mathemtizing Childrens Literature Write-Ups June 2024

 

And I will close with a quote from the book and a connection to the words of Loris Malaguzzi of Reggio Emilia.

~Janice

an urban math walk in Vancouver, April 20 2024

On April 20, 2024, a group of educators from across the lower mainland met at the plaza of the Vancouver Art Gallery to begin an urban math walk, guided by Lauren MacLean and myself. We introduced ourselves and each participant was provided with a little bag and a postcard with questions to provoke our thinking as we walked.

In each participants little bag, there was a collection of tools from Math Anywhere,  a pencil, and a #BCreggio math button. An example of the tools for finding math included these shape finding frames:

  

This was the general route we took, needing to make a few detours.

We began our walk down the street from the art gallery, with a public art installation.

Public art is common in urban spaces and often is changed out over time. Many cities have websites with more information about their public art installations such as the City of Vancouver's website HERE, Vancouver Biennale HERE and the Vancouver Mural Fest HERE. 

Public art is a great way to connect mathematics to the world and explore mathematical concepts such as shape, design, symmetry, size, scale, pattern, ratio, etc. Some other public art installations we visited were from Biennale projects and from the Vancouver Mural Festival. 

As we walked we discussed all sorts of mathematical connections and possibilities for investigations such as collecting data on modes of transportation, estimating heights of buildings, a timeline of the city's development, impact of humans on living and non-living things in the spaces we walked through, and how numbers are used to organize and label a city. In Vancouver we also bumped up against the use of water by humans for transportation, recreation and industry. What questions might our students have? How might mathematics help us understand these urban places and spaces?


What an amazing morning we had together, re-connecting in person under clear blue skies, exploring the city and nudging each others' thinking. Many educators attending shared how they were inspired to take ideas from our walk together back to their schools and communities and to see the places and spaces around them through a new lens.

Where might you find mathematics in urban places and spaces?

~Janice