The site below was created out of a grant from 2011 with sponsorships from BC and it’s goal was to overcome challenges in teaching math to Aboriginal youth by teaching math in a cultural context and teaching basic skills and problem-solving early on. The particular part of the site that drew me in was the Stories/Movies section which includes a series of stories with mathematical themes including many different translations of each story, such as English, Cree and Blackfoot. I also loved that it stayed true to the idea of oral storytelling, and the stories are oral, not written. There are moving pictures that assist in telling the story, and also background noises found in nature, such as birds chirping, and water running. One story, Small Number and the Basketball Tournament, described a boy and his day in school, and the basketball tournament. It explains the amount of hopes, the amount of players, and shifts using algebra but also the family connections and female empowerment. At the end, it repeats Small Numbers conclusions, and asks the audience how he figured it out. I could see this story being used as a good brain warm up in class, getting kids to talk it out, replay the story, and come up with the reasoning. I will be looking forward to trying that out in my own classroom.
Stories/Movies. Math Catcher. (n.d.). http://mathcatcher.irmacs.sfu.ca/stories