Thank you to member Elke Indigo who wrote some continuation stories from the Sixth Sense Math we use in the First Grade Earthschooling curriculum. She shared the following temperament story she created for “divide” with other members. It is lovely and so much work went into it! Thank you Elke! If other members have stories to share please let us know. This is Elke’s Math Temperament Story for Divide…
Math gnome – temperament story for Divide…
• Great King Equals decides he’d like to teach the Maths Gnomes how to read maps. Sure, they don’t need them to navigate around the cave and the little village outside their own cave – they’ve known that place their whole lives – but if GKE’s should need to send one of the gnomes to collect something from another village, or send another gnome off to help one of the other Kings or perhaps even if the gnomes wanted to go on a little outing together on one of their days off. So GKE’s decided he would take the four gnome friends on a little excursion so they could look at reading and navigating from maps.
• GKE’s told the four gnomes they would take turns in navigating and learning about the maps. Plus would navigate to the town they were visiting, Minus would navigate from the town to the National Park they were visiting, Divide would navigate around a little walk they planned to do in the National Park and Times would navigate home.
• They set out early that day looking at the maps and following the path laid out. Plus had a lovely time learning about the different keys on the maps and what the symbols meant. She found it easy to follow the roads and had a lot of fun. Along the way GKE’s talked to the four gnomes about the directions and told them a funny story about soggy breakfast cereal to help them remember the names of the directions.
• When they arrived in the town, they went to the little information hut to gather some maps for the walk they planned to do. “Are you planning to go up the mountain?” asked the lady in the information centre. “We are” said GKE’s, “we thought there might even be some snow at this time of year for the gnomes to see”. “I’m sorry” said the lady “the mountain is closed for the next few weeks, they are doing some maintenance up there and the roads in and out are closed.” Minus of course was immediately upset. “Of course it is” he said “Of course it’s going to be me that misses out on getting my turn to read the maps and we’ve come all this way for no use”. GKE’s could see Minus’ eyes getting wet and he knew he was trying not to cry. GKE’s gently put his hand on Minus’ back to soothe him and Minus shrugged his hand off saying “Don’t worry I’m fine” – but GKE’s knew he was upset.
• In the meantime Plus had been looking at some other information posters and maps and was talking to another lady that was by the information counter. “Don’t be upset friend” she said “There is SO much we can still do – it hasn’t been a wasted trip”…. “There’s a cafe next door that uses organic produce where we could have a snack, there’s a yarn shop across the road we can look for some wool for some new winter socks and there’s a park out the back that looks quite lovely.”
• “That will barely take up an hour” said Times “I think we can fit in 3 times as many things. If we wander up the street and look at the other shops, walk around the bike track in the park and go on the swings, that’ll be 2 times as many things. Then there is also the Platypus walk around the river, there’s some sculptures to look at along the way by local artists AND there’s this activity centre here in the hut with SO many things to do. That’s 3 times as many things to do AND now come to think of it, in the activity centre there is; a truck we can drive, different wood weights we can pick up, relief prints we can colour over, a story book we can walk along and read in those large paintings on the wall, wooden noughts and crosses to play AS WELL AS looking at the old milling equipment they have here! That is actually 6 times as many things that we can do!”
• “Gosh” said Divide. “Times, we will be here all week if we try to do all of that. I think we just need to look at the options and share out some things that each of us can do” So the gnomes together sat and talked about all the things that they could do. Minus was happy to realise that the platypus walk still had a map that he could use to navigate to the walk. Divide said she was happy to share the map around the platypus walk with Minus and they could direct the others together. Times didn’t mind at all because he would still get to navigate home. Then each of the gnomes chose three of the activities to do and there was even a few left over for GKE’s to do as well. Of course the platypus walk they all did together.
• Wow! Is your head spinning? Mine certainly is! There was so much for the gnomes to do, but with a little co-operation they managed to do it all. Well that evening when they were finally back home eating the pearl barley stew that the other gnomes had made through the day while they were out, they shared so many fun stories with all the worker gnomes. The other gnomes were all so excited to hear about the various activities each of the gnomes had done on their outing. Of course GKE’s had to mediate who spoke when because as you would expect ALL the gnomes wanted to speak at once about the exciting things they’d done.
• After each gnome spoke, GKE’s told all the gnomes about the wonderful platypus walk they’d taken. He told them about the beautiful sculptures of local animals along the river bank, how they were able to see the various levels the river rose to with the marks on the bank, they spoke about the erosion underneath one of the big trees and each gnome guessed how long they thought it would be before that big tree fell right down into the river. They spoke about the signs of Spring they’d been able to see in the landscape around the river and then they told the big surprise…. They had even seen The Platypus!!! None of them could believe it. They knew platypus’ liked the early morning and didn’t often come out in the middle of the day. It was almost like the platypus knew how sad Minus had been when they found out the mountain was closed and he came out for a special little sighting to cheer him up. The gnomes were all very excited to tell about what they’d learnt that day. About the group of animals called the monotremes and the funny story about how English scientists thought it was a prank when the first specimens of platypus were originally sent back to England all those many years ago. An egg laying animal who fed it’s young on milk? They thought someone had taken pieces of various animals and stitched them all together to make a fake animal. They didn’t actually think this animal was REAL!
• So in the end it was a lovely day after all! A day filled with such excitement, and activities none of them anticipated when they’d set out on their journey that day!
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