In the Kingdom of Arithmos Queen Henna is desperately trying to save the land from the deeds of the evil barons, Want and Greed. To put things right she enlists the help of some very special people:

• Adila Equals with her even hand who always knows when things are the same and the two sides are balanced;
• Farmer Plus and his family, Annie Add, Tilly Tally, Esther Estimate, Tommy Total and Sammy Sum;
• Timmy Times, Peter Product and the Marvellous Multiply Machine that can magically make things many times bigger;
• Sir Daring Divide who, with his family motto, “Fair shares for all!” and his battle cry, “You must share!”, ensures the people in the land are sharing things into equal parts;
• And Mercy Minus who is saddened by all the suffering in the land and spends her time taking food from the store that the queen has organised and giving it away to those in need.

Through acting out and engaging with these stories the children encountered the abstract symbols for the Four Basic Operations: +, –, x and ÷, together with the = symbol which ensures both sides of the equation are balanced and equal.

The children have already been engaged in adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing numbers using Cuisenaire Rods, but in this block we moved forward to begin to express these abstractly using only numbers and symbols.

Woven within all of this fundamental Maths work, were deeper social and moral themes: care for the environment; fairness, equality and Social Justice; and the importance of the law and the judicial system (as conducted by the judge, Lady Equals).

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Plays and performance are an integral part of Steiner education. Students at Cardiff Steiner School become comfortable with dramatic recitation and presentation from the earliest ages. Puppet plays and spontaneous songs and performances in Kindergarten and Lower Classes make way for more substantial Class plays in Middle and Upper School School. Students present musical, poetic and movement performances throughout the year at festivals and all school assemblies.

Find out more about Performance in the Steiner Curriculum >