Yesterday was the first day of a new schedule that I started with the children. It is summer time but we needed a little structure, regardless. Also, I wanted to start doing some reading aloud. And since we have done zero math since our school year officially ended, that seemed like a good place to start.
Admittedly, I was a bit inclined to be skeptical of the concept of children learning math through living books. But I am trusting in the method and giving it a go. I have one child who experienced frustration last year with math, A LOT of it. So, I figured just listening to some fun stories about it will help to get rid of the hard feelings he may have developed regarding arithmetic.
Before bed last night I read the intro and first story in Number Stories of Long Ago. I had skimmed the story beforehand to make sure it was appropriate and was left wondering if it would hold everyone's attention. My two youngest were tired after a long evening of VBS and it showed while I read the story. But the one child that I wanted to benefit from the story the most DID!
A look at the 2nd preface of the book explains why Number Stories was written.
PREFACE NUMBER TWO
FOR THE GROWN-UPS, AND NOT WORTH
READING
The story of our numbers, of the world's attempts
to count, of the many experiments in writing numer-
als, and of the difficulties encountered through the
ages in performing our everyday computations — all
this is so interwoven with the history of humanity
as to have an interest for every thinking person. As
the world has grown, so the work with numbers has
grown; when the world has faced the mysteries of
the universe, numbers have assisted in solving its
problems; when commerce and science have shown
new needs in computation, arithmetic has always been
ready to lend a hand. The history of mathematics is
no small part of the history of civilization.
This being the case, it seems proper to relate at
least some portion of the story of numbers to the
pupils in our schools. It can be made quite as inter-
esting as any other story of civilization, for it touches
upon a subject with which the pupils in our schools
are in daily contact, adding new values to the prob-
lems of arithmetic and giving a new perspective to
the whole study of mathematics.
This book is intended for supplementary reading
in the elementary school. It is written in nontech-
nical language, and the effort has been made to con-
nect with the history enough of the human element
to make it more interesting than any mere recital of
facts. With it there is also joined something of the
history of writing materials, this being connected nat-
urally with the story of our numbers. Chapters I-VIII
can easily be read aloud, and the Question Box at
the end of each chapter can be used as a basis for
conversation or for written work.
The facts stated in the book are as nearly exact as
the circumstances permit. It is not to be expected,
however, that changes in the form of various nu-
merals will be considered. Such changes are of no
moment in a work of this nature and do not con-
tradict the statement that the historical facts are
presented with substantial accuracy.
It is the author's hope that this little series of
human incidents will create a new interest not merely
in the study of arithmetic but in the story of the
development of our civilization.
DAVID EUGENE SMITH, author
(emphasis mine)
Wow, those were high hopes for a book! But because of how engaging the first story is I know that the author accomplished his goals. This is the page that got my son excitedly doing mental math right before bedtime late on a Monday night.
"FIVE!!!!" My son excitedly shouted that out without any prompting right after I read "two twos and one". And this morning he asked me if I would read another story "right now". All I can say to that is thank you Lord!
