One sunny day two friends went for a walk. They met up with three or four other people. Then five minutes later six other friends walked with them for seven kilometres. Eight or nine days later, ten of these people met up again but this time they were at the beach. Number stories are simple descriptions of either real or imagined events that involve numbers. An example might be ‘Tom has three sweets, but eats two. How many does he have?’ They are used as a method of teaching different number skills.

You will find numbers stories in many different forms – you can teach them, you can read them in books, and you can experience them in life! These are good to include in stories about objects that can be split up into quantities. Good things are food, like large cakes, or pizzas.It is important that children learn to apply the abstract knowledge they learn, and number stories offer a brilliant way of doing this.

All of our resources are easy to use, just press the green button, print off your resource, and you are ready to go! For example, ‘a cat gives birth to three cute kittens, and then one more. How many does she have?’ This will get an ‘ahh’ out of many children, because they respond to the cuteness of the kittens. When children have engaged with simple number stories, and are confident to do so, the next step is to introduce number stories involving different maths functions. If you are looking for a challenge, why not try this number bonds to 20 activity booklet and see how your children get on. Join our fun Facebook community, Creative Family Fun for Busy Families, for daily activities that are great for kids and families. We’ll chat, share, and have fun. It’s a safe and private place to share idea for family and kids activities.There are a surprisingly large number of picture books that are not obviously about numbers, but you can talk about numbers as you read them. There are many simple early books that are like a kind of number story. A lot of these have different quantities of things in them. A good example is this book – One Ted Falls Out Of Bed by Julia Donaldson:

The language is different! The images are different. These are not numbers, but real things, and it requires a different type of thinking. Drawing a picture often helps inspire reluctant writers to start writing. This is especially true of young children, who might need to see how the numbers interact before they actually write about them. Ask the students to imagine they received some fish for Christmas, for example, then lead them with a few questions relating to what type and color of fish. Have them draw a picture of the fish in their aquarium and write a number story based on the picture. Older students might be challenged by first creating an elaborate collage or mosaic out of torn paper or ceramic tiles and then being told to create a number story based on the artwork by choosing its shapes or colors. Use Real Data

Activity: Make your own number bonds machine

For example, simple stories like ‘Imran and Julie have 8 sweets. They share them. How many will they have each?’ One night there were two ghosts underneath my bed. Three vampires were in the roof. Then I looked out side and saw four witches. Then there were five monsters. Then I saw six or seven mummies. After that there were eight aliens and nine or ten wolves. There are lots of counting objects, and even some calculating. The music really helps! The more multisensory you can make learning at this stage of life the better. Using Numbers Stones One day I went to the zoo. I saw two snakes and three, four or five lions. Then I stopped for six minutes for lunch. My brothers had seven sandwiches and eight or nine drinks. Then I saw ten horses. Then I went home and it was fun at the zoo. Special note: If your child is having problems with number stories because of their reading level, I would encourage you to talk to their teacher. He/she can give you strategies to help. Plus, it is always helpful to make sure that both you and your child’s teacher are aware of the areas where your child struggles. At home, you can help them by reading through the problems together. Help them learn the words that come up often (ex: more, less) and work with them to find word clues. They have the ability to learn this if given the tools to help. You’ve got this parents. Now that we have answered the question, what is a number story, tryone of these activities for more number story practice: