Maths in Stories


Before the Christmas Holidays we read a story called ‘Father Christmas Needs a Wee!’ It was a brilliant story and everyone thought it was really funny. When we first looked at the book Miss Parker set us a challenge to find as much Maths in the story as possible. At first we weren’t sure what Father Christmas needing a wee had to do with Maths but it quickly became clear.

Father Christmas stops at all the houses and at each house has lots of drinks. We had to count the number of drinks at each house. We then thought how to make that number using our fingers in different ways. Can you see on the display how Logan and Lacey made 6 in different ways? We checked with the Numicon that they were right. How many different ways can your child make 6 on their fingers? 

Michael knew which house number came next because it was the next number in sequence, “4 next because 1-2-3-4.” Does your child know which number comes next for numbers to 1o?  If they know them to 10 how about to 20? How about knowing the number which is one less and comes before? 

We talked about the numbers we could see on the pages and also the numbers that we had on our doors at home. Some of us tried to write the numbers on our doors. Does your child know which number house they live at? Can they write it down? 

We were feeling really clever as the book went on and even found some calculating to do. Corey knew that 5 drinks and 5 mince pies made 10 altogether, “10 because 5 add 5 is 10” and he was even able to write it in a number sentence. Does your child know any simple addition calculations? are they able to write them down?

It wasn’t just Number Maths we found in the story either. We found some Shape Space Measures Maths. We talked about the size of the characters in the story and Charlie said “Big Santa, small elf“. Can you child talk about the size of the members of their family? Who is the tallest? Who is the shortest? 

And we weren’t finished there either, Ruby noticed that there was some time in the book. “Half past three, thats time!“, she said. Does your child know about time? Can they say what happens first in the day and what happens after that? Can they sequence events during their day?

What a lot of Maths from one story!

Do you have any stories at home which have Maths in them? Have a look next time you look at a book together. If you find one bring it to school and we can all have a look at it together. It would be a great thing to write on a wow moment too. We look forward to hearing about the Maths stories you find.


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