Explore math differently :
feel, imagine, and share for a better understanding
Mathematics and storytelling—what’s the connection?
When a storyteller and a mathematician meet, they quickly realize that they share the same ways of thinking! Both call upon observation, memory, mental imagery and its organization, as well as oral and written expression.
Some tales help children grasp fundamental mathematical concepts: quantities, measurements, sharing, logic…
Others reveal the very process of mathematical thinking itself: exploring, making mistakes, persevering, imagining, trying again… steps that are just as central to the journey of a story’s hero as they are to a student facing a mathematical problem.
By valuing imagination and making cognitive processes visible, this project is aimed at teachers from preschool to secondary school, in order to connect mathematics with thought and language right from the earliest years.
Our approach
in 3 keys
Embracing
mathematical concepts
Drawing on cumulative tales, wisdom tales, or animal tales to become familiar with arithmetic, logic, and fractions…
Giving meaning to our experience when trying to solve a problem, by drawing on the archetypes embodied by fairy-tale heroes.
Building
transversal skills
Bringing an inner world to life, structuring it, and sharing it—whether to tell a story or to formulate a mathematical statement.
Telling
to count better !
Demystifying Math
Change preconceived ideas about mathematics, wich all too often make it an intimidating and abstract discipline.
How ?
By giving a central place to intuition, enjoyment, and curiosity, in order to help students progress and reduce inequalities in learning.
Tales prepare the mind for the mathematical adventure…
They help students become familiar with logical relationships, reasoning by contradiction, orders of magnitude, and many other concepts and skills…
… and they develop the ability to build mental images, which are essential for abstract mathematical thinking.
In front of others, these tales can be told to gain self-confidence and to express an autonomous, structured, and thoughtful voice!
Educational
Resources
Project news
Etymology
In Latin languages such as French and Italian, "Conter" and "Compter" have the same Latin origin, computare, meaning to calculate.The notions of "narrate" and...
Tell mathematics
The goal of Myths & Maths is to enable students, from kindergarten to middle school, to improve their perception and practice of mathematics through storytelling....
Partners
and contributors
Collectif Oralité Auvergne
Storytellers Association, France
revue La Grande Oreille
Publisher, France
CRA Francisco Ibañez
School group, Spain
Ljuben Karavelov School
Primary school, Bulgaria
Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
Institute for Research on Mathematics Education (IREM), France
Thank you to all our contributors
Un projet européen Erasmus+
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