Dramatic Mathematics: 5 Stories to Support Early Maths Learning

Children are born with an ability to make sense of the world through play and storytelling. By creating narratives during fantasy play, children act out concepts and ideas that confuse them or that they find fascinating. Dramatic Mathematics consists of five stories and accompanying exercises to support teachers in Key Stage 1 to take a playful, story-based approach to introduce early mathematical concepts that children often struggle with.

The stories are all set in the Kingdom of Sunobia and follow the journey of kings and sorceresses, an evil ship owner and a girl called Lily, who is exceptionally clever and very good at maths. Accompanied by playful illustrations and teachers notes, each story presents a different aspect of the Key Stage 1 maths curriculum enabling teachers to engage their pupils emotionally and bring the topic of maths to life.

Offering a wide range of stimulating ideas for developing learners’ mathematical thinking and understanding, these activities can be used to enrich and supplement learning and will be an essential resource for all teachers looking to teach mathematics in an exciting new way.

Trisha Lee, author of the best-selling Princesses, Dragons and Helicopter Stories, is a professionally trained theatre director and storyteller. She is passionate about the importance of storytelling and story acting in children’s lives. In 2002, Trisha founded MakeBelieve Arts, a UK-based theatre and education company specialising in working with children aged 2-7 through storytelling, poetry and Helicopter Stories.

Isla Hill trained as a primary school teacher and then went on to study Theatre Education at Goldsmiths College, University of London. Here, she met Trisha and the partnership was cemented as they discovered a shared belief in the power of story to engage children. Isla is Education Director at MakeBelieve Arts.