It's important to share engaing books with children that have math learning as a primary goal.

Via MindShift. 

When reading books, it’s important to realize that math is a broad subject. Clearly, a counting book or a shape book describing circles and squares are both explicitly about math, in the sense of the kind of formal math we usually learn in school. Although not explicitly about school math, Goldilocks entails relatively complex math ideas— order and correlation. Other storybooks deal in an informal way with patterns, spatial relations, measurement, addition and subtraction, and division — all of which are “math.” Indeed, it would be hard to find a non-math storybook that does not include everyday math in this broad sense. In fact, ordinary storybooks may contain more interesting math than do explicit math storybooks (and textbooks, too!).

This in turn raises the question of the type of math you want your child to learn — school math or embedded math? The answer is both. Children need to memorize the counting words, but also need to know that their order specifies relative magnitude. They need to memorize 1, 2, 3, 4, but also need to know that 3 is a bigger number than 2 because it comes after 2, but it is also a smaller number than 4, because it comes after 3. Memorizing symbols is not enough, just as knowing the everyday story is not enough. Eventually, the child needs to know how the informal ideas provide the meaningful basis for the formal math.

Read books that you both find interesting, amusing and full of wonder, books that will grow the child’s budding love of reading. Bypass boring stories, even if you think they are “educational.” Enjoy the story!

You can read the rest of the article here. 

StoryWeaver recently created a series of openly licensed, digital-first books that celebrated math concepts from the simple to the slightly abstract. Created under an Oracle Grant, these books were guest edited by renowned children's author Roopa Pai and dealt with every day fractions, Fibonacci series, dates and distances small and great. Roopa wrote one of the stories, 'How Old is Muttaji?' - a delightful concoction of math, history and culture! 

The books were part of a larger set of STEM books that were created to fill a gap in children's publishing in India: engaging non-fiction books and joyful, non-fiction narratives. 

How Far is Far by Sukanya Sinha and Vishnu M Nair

If you thought your friend's house on the other side of town was far away, you have clearly not read this book. Climb the Magic Math Ladder to get from where you are to the top of Mount Everest, to Kashmir, to the moon, the Sun, and ultimately, to the edge of the Universe, which is very, very, VERY far away indeed. Ready, steady, go!

Dum Dum-a-Dum Biryani by Gayathri Tirthapura and Kabini Amin

Basha and Sainabi are in a panic. Ammi is ill, and Saira aunty has just announced that she is arriving for lunch - with 23 other people! Budding chef Basha thinks he can cook Ammi's Dum Biryani, but her recipe only makes enough for 4 people. Math wiz Sainabi jumps in to help, declaring that she knows how to turn a 4-person recipe to a 24-person recipe. Do the siblings succeed in serving up a truly Dum Dum-a-Dum biryani? Read this book to find out!

The Fascinating Fibonaccis - by Shonali Chinniah and Hari Kumar Nair

Almost a thousand years ago, an Indian scholar called Hemachandra discovered a fascinating number sequence. A century later, the same sequence caught the attention of Italian mathematician Fibonacci, who wrote about it. The Fibonacci sequence, as it began to be called, was straightforward enough - what made it fascinating was that this particular set of numbers was repeated many, many times in nature - in flowers, seashells, eggs, seeds, stars... Find out more inside this book!

How Old Is Muttaji? by Roopa Pai and Kaveri Gopalakrishnan

Putta and Putti know that Muttajji is really, really old. But exactly HOW old is she? Join the twin detectives on an exciting mathematical journey through Muttajji's memories and India's history in their quest to crack the big question.

Have a look at these digital books, which are all available to read, download and print for sharing absolutely free! The books are also available in a number of Indic languages, and if you'd like to translate the book in to a language you're fluent in, you can use our translate tool!

Be the first to comment.

---

At Pratham Books, we believe in the power of stories – good stories. For well over a decade we have strived hard to reach children across India with a variety of award-winning stories across 18 Indian languages. With our digital crowd-sourcing platform – StoryWeaver we now share the power of stories with a global community of educators, parents, authors, illustrators and translators.

StoryWeaver is a digital repository of openly-licensed, multilingual children's stories. It allows its users to read, create and translate stories into Indian and international languages in the hope that children across the world can read quality stories in a language of their choice.

We are looking to scale up content on StoryWeaver and add about 20,000 new stories by December 2019. In order to achieve this target we have several projects starting up and so we are currently, we're looking for a full-time, Project Assistant to join our Digital Team in Bangalore to help keep these projects on track.

As an Project Assistant at StoryWeaver, this is what will keep you busy:

• Coordinate with  and oversee external vendors to ensure timelines and quality.

• Maintain databases and project file systems

• Coordinate with in house team and external vendors on tasks as per objectives

• Co-ordinating with the administrative team for documentation, records and payments (contracts, work orders, etc)

• Identifying open repositories/opportunities to bring more stories onto StoryWeaver

• Support campaigns aimed at improving content and reach of StoryWeaver

Preferred Requirements

• Degree in Literature/Journalism/Mass Communication/Media /Language

• Excellent verbal and written communication and organizational skills

• 1-2 years of work experience; freshers may also apply

• Ability to multi-task and coordinate between different stakeholders

• Sharp eye for detail and the ability to work well under pressure

• Tech-savvy

• Love for books and languages

• Be a good team player

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Please send your resume to [email protected] with 'Project Assistant for StoryWeaver' in the subject line of the email.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Be the first to comment.

---

 

The Rosetta Foundation was launched on September 21, 2009, at the Action for Global Information Sharing (AGIS) ’09 Conference in Limerick, Ireland, by the President of the University of Limerick, Professor Don Barry. Its primary purpose is to make information available to individuals all over the world irrespective of their social status, linguistic or cultural background, and geographical location. The organisation's name is based on the Rosetta Stone. In 196 BC, the text of the Rosetta Stone was carved in Egyptian and Greek using three scripts - Hieroglyphic, Demotic and Greek. The Rosetta Stone was written in these scripts to make sure that everyone in the world at the time could understand it. The Stone was discovered in 1799 in a small Egyptian village called Rosetta, which gave the stone its name. We spoke to Stefania Tringali, Production Coordinator about the foundation's work work and their collaboration with StoryWeaver.

What is your mission?

We work to relieve poverty, support healthcare, develop education and promote justice through equal access to information and knowledge across the languages of the world. Like the Rosetta Stone, the aim of The Rosetta Foundation is to provide equal access to information to as many people as possible.

Why is translation / making the world more open and inclusive so important?

We believe access to information in your own language is a fundamental and universal human right – one that The Rosetta Foundation is committed to preserve and protect.The multilingual information we facilitate makes a real difference in people’s lives. But the reality is that nearly three-quarters of the world’s population still has no access to vital information in their own language. The Rosetta Foundation will continue working hard on their behalf in 2017 and beyond, because access to information in your own language is a fundamental human right.

How are StoryWeaver and The Rosetta Foundation's mission and purpose aligned?

StoryWeaver and The Rosetta Foundation have worked together on six translation projects for a children’s book series into seven languages. We believe that we have a lot in common in our mission and vision. Both of our organisations work for equal access to the intellectual resources and believe that languages shouldn’t be an obstacle in this process. It was a great pleasure for us to work together and cooperate for the “Freedom to Read” campaign: it was a great chance for our volunteers to use their skills to promote equality and empower children all over the world.

The Rosetta Foundation logo is by Source, fair use: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27129018)

Be the first to comment.

---