For our first week of our first numbers block, I told a story adapted from "A Journey to the Shining Isle" from Starhawk's book titled Circle Round. It's a story about leaving an apple out for Grandfather Deer on Samhain (Halloween). He brings you to a river as wide as the sea where a Ferry person asks you riddles (in my version). Each day, they ask a riddle which is answered by a number. Here are the first two:
1) As straight as a spear I stand, to reach for the sky with both my hands, my shape reveals how many "I am" Answer: The number one! I am the only one who is me!
2) Alone I cannot feel myself, but with the one I can feel the other. You have them both, what am I and what is my sign? Answer: My two hands!
And so on...
Eventually, the children cross the river to the Shining Isle where they meet their ancestors, play and eat wonderful food! They then meet the Goddess with two moons in her eyes who is stirring a pot full of stars. These are the spirits of the children who have yet to be born. The brew tastes sweet and will help the whoever drinks of it through hard times. Eventually, they make their way back home.
The children are asked "What is One?', 2, 3 etc each night. The day after the number is revealed, we find things which express oneness (the circle, ourselves), twoness (our eyes, hands, sun and moon), threeness (triangles) and so on all around us. We are so lucky be out in nature for this! We can also count our garden beds, the animals we see, etc. We also are stepping to our verses and then counting in ones, twos, and threes forwards and backwards. This is all preparing us for arithmetic, and some of the children are discovering the connection already. We draw some of those things.
The next day, a new number is revealed, and we write the number from 2 days before in basic Roman numerals (a series of I's) and in Arabic numerals (1,2,3,4 etc.)
This is absolutely gorgeous! Bravo Teacher Frankie!
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