Abstract:

Mathematics is present in everyday life and is not always given its due value. Often it appears as an isolated science and this work aims to consider the advantages of learning it through children's stories. Children love children's stories and the fact that they can include mathematics is an advantage for learning both mathematical concepts and language itself. They unconsciously pick up on important notions for their lives. When this resource can be thought out and prepared by the students together with the teacher, it becomes an even more enriching and motivating tool. Following a previous work that reported the experience in the context of supervised teaching practice, were a kindergarten group of 25 children wrote a story with mathematics that included the theme of nature, inserted in a school project, we now propose its continuity to the 1st basic education cicle (primary school), taking advantage of the fact that we can follow the same students during four years of their lives. Including mathematics in these stories becomes, once again, a way to demystify possible difficulties and overcome them in a more positive way. There will always be moments when we will have to work on the mother tongue, math, and environmental studies in more detail, but at the same time, through questioning or exercises, we establish a common thread without ever losing the reasoning. By using stories with mathematics, chosen or elaborated by the teacher, to begin the 1st year of schooling, it provides students with a routine and the perception of the process of constructing a story. With the knowledge of this process and the rules of constructing these stories, it becomes possible to propose to the students, more stories in which writing the students participate. It would be important to start in a large group, to assess the most appropriate way to use this resource with that specific group of students. As the years go by, and with more autonomy in writing, reading and appropriation of knowledge, the group process could be maintained, as well as the reading of each story, but there could be some variations. There could be one for each group and they would be responsible for creating and presenting it. There will always be some corrections, of course, but as they get older, they are more confident doing this and can more easily include more detailed mathematical content. Nowadays, even in lockdown, you can not lose contact with the little ones and the construction of a story that can be accompanied with a comic strip drawing that can later be animated and result in the making of a short cartoon or a documentary in which not only students and teachers, but also parents, participate, will be a uniting factor among all, that although separate they can build something together.

Keywords:

Stories written by children, mathematics, primary school.