Math+Literacy = A Winning STEAM Combo with Dr. Kateri Thunder

Math+Literacy = A Winning STEAM Combo

Discover how to blend math and literacy into the joy of everyday play and learning. Dr. Kateri Thunder shares her incredible strategies for sparking children's innate mathematical curiosity through storytelling, play, and intentional language.

From the pages of The Very Hungry Caterpillar to the adventures of Jabari Jumps, learn how you can turn any story time into an opportunity for young minds to explore mathematical concepts in a fun and engaging way.

Join the conversation this week with Dr. Kateri Thunder, an expert in early childhood education, as she shares her top strategies for recognizing and nurturing young children's innate mathematical thinking. Through intentional language and fun-filled activities, discover how everyday interactions like reading and playing can ignite a lifelong love for math in young learners.

Embrace the power of open-ended questions to transform your teaching practice, inspired by Eric Carle's beloved story The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We discuss how letting children's natural curiosity lead can deepen their engagement with mathematical concepts. Learn how to use concrete, representational, and abstract methods—such as cubes and number charts—to foster critical thinking and a strong mathematical identity in young learners, making every moment in the classroom a joyful journey of discovery and problem-solving.

Finally, dive into the creative integration of math and literacy using multicultural children's literature, as we discuss strategies for connecting math, literacy and STEM using books like Jabari Jumps and Jabari Tries. We also explore the profound impact of unplugged coding activities and the significance of including diverse fairy tales that reflect all children's experiences.

Empower yourself as an educator or parent with a treasure trove of innovative techniques designed to make every classroom moment a delightful journey of discovery and problem-solving for our early learners.

Don't miss out on this enlightening conversation with Dr. Kateri Thunder that promises to ignite a love for math in the hearts of children and provide fresh inspiration for educators everywhere!

Listen now and join us in transforming early childhood education, one playful moment at a time!

About Our Guest:
Kateri Thunder, Ph.D. is an educator, researcher, author, and coach who collaborates with learners and educators from school divisions around the world to translate research into practice. Kateri has served as an inclusive, early childhood educator, an Upward Bound educator, a mathematics specialist, an assistant professor of mathematics education at James Madison University, and Site Director for the Central Virginia Writing Project. Kateri researches, writes, and presents on equity and access in education and the intersection of literacy and mathematics for teaching and learning. She has partnered with thousands of educators to catalyze change in their classrooms and schools. Kateri is a best-s

Chapters

• 0:35 Don't Panic! Activate Your Math Brain
• 2:09 What Does It Look Like To See Math+Literacy at Work in an Early Childhood Classroom Setting?
• 7:43 Connecting with a Classic: Computational Thinking and The Very Hungry Caterpillar
• 15:17 Math+Literacy -- How did Dr. Kateri Thunder become the math connector?
• 18:04 Let’s look at the early childhood research! Where should we start if we want to learn more?
• 23:27 Using Math+Literacy (and STEAM) to build critical thinkers who can collaborate and solve problems creatively
• 27:31 Why should we use diverse picture books in math?
• 34:38 Dr. Kateri Thunder's books and resources for educators

Transcript

00:00 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Welcome to the Adventures in Learning podcast. You guys are in for such a treat today. When I was at a conference earlier this spring, I had the great honor of being in Kateri Thunder's workshop and I thought I knew a lot about early childhood. And I've got to tell you guys, I learned so much about how we can connect literacy and mathematics for our youngest learners. She is an expert. Literacy and mathematics for our youngest learners she is an expert. Kateri has done so much work in thousands of classrooms across the country and you're just in for such a treat. 

00:32 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh, thank you so much for having me, Diane. I'm just thrilled to get to hang out. Talk about my favorite thing early childhood. 

00:39 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
You know, sometimes when we talk about math and little people, the eyes start to glaze over and people I get the same thing talking about science how do you get past that, to get people to realize oh, this is fun and it connects to everything that we do. 

00:57 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
You know, I think some of it is that. Well, in math I think we as teachers have had experiences as learners that make us think well, maybe I am a math learner or maybe I'm not. And that means you know, depending on how you identify in that space, sometimes that bleeds over into your teaching of what you're willing to take a risk in or where you see the opportunities with math. So that's one space that I try to start to just say we all, we all have math brains, we all have brilliance in math and there's math in everything. And so just trying to build that connection between all of the great ways kids are playing and accessing math and thinking about math, all of the great ways as teachers we are intuitively engaging kids in math and then just naming it and saying that's it, that's that amazing thing, that is mathematical thinking, that's the reasoning behind it, those are the numbers, that's the quantitative thinking and really kind of celebrating things that, as early educators, we're already doing with our great expertise, and saying that's it, that's the math, let's keep doing it and let's, you know, even leverage it more. 

02:03 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And so let's go there for a minute. What would that look like in an early childhood classroom, Like if you could wave your magic wand and you saw the math brain at work in a connected way. What would that look like to you? 

02:15 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
I love this question. Well, I've been talking a lot with many people around nonverbal math knowledge. So that's a really cool space to think about. Because when you think about really, really young kids six months old, three months old, nine months old they have this amazing nonverbal math knowledge. And then all the way through, you and I have amazing nonverbal math knowledge as well. So so much of the way to kind of start into it is to just be with kids, notice what they're doing, notice what they're trying, without necessarily even putting any words to it, and then to capitalize on all of that with our language in a space of play. And then you can even push it even further to, you know, say, hey, here's this cool math tool. You know, say, hey, here's this cool math tool, here's this cool math word that you could put in there and kind of build that language and those manipulatives and those materials into the play. So it might look just like reading a book. 

03:15
You know, when you see kids pay attention to a page that has more on it, right, larger quantities on it more cars or more faces or more houses or more balloons and just saying like, ooh, look at that, that one has more, this one has less and then it could move into. You know, you see small kids trying to pick up things and they have, you know, two hands. They can get two things. But how do you grab that third thing you know and just say, oh wow, I see you, you're trying to carry more things. You only have two hands and you've got two things. How can we grab three things or four things? That'll be more. And then you know so much that we do actually in science, right connects into math, which is just life, right? All of that digging and pouring, all of the capacity work, all of the building and seeing that you might need like more or larger structures on the bottom or heavier, and then the building and seeing that you might need like more or larger structures on the bottom or heavier, and then the lighter or fewer or smaller at the top. And all of that is language and when we talk about it, when we say it, and it helps to give kids the math word, but it also empowers them to be able to talk about it again when they try it later and then transfer it and see themselves thinking mathematically forever. So that would be. You know, that's like my always. 

04:31
My first place to start is to say every kid's got something amazing in math going on. Let's sit with them, let's spend time with them, give ourselves, give them the gift of time you know and really see, really experience the gift of time you know and really see, really experience. Look at the learning through their eyes. And then, after that, I think, all the spaces that are things that we love to do as educators. You know we love to tell stories or read aloud or experiment with something or do artwork. Anytime we can look at that space that we love and try to see the mathematics in it, then we'll be able to talk about it and notice it and capitalize on it with kids. So that's the other thing I encourage. 

05:11
I think, like, what do you love to do? Okay, let's dive into that. Let's look and see where all the math is. When you are painting, is there mixing of colors? Right? That makes all sorts of combinations and that's just like number combinations. And what are you painting? How are you using all these shapes to combine, to make something? Or, if you love a read aloud oh man, read alouds are amazing. There's math across all of them, whether they call them math, read aloud or not, and that's an amazing space to jump into as well. 

05:39 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And there really is so much math in everything. You know, once I started getting past the idea of calling it math and thinking about it as computational thinking, it became so much easier for me to go. Oh, okay, I see it. And so you know I was thinking about. I just did a whole thing with kids up in Germantown, New York, and we were talking about insects and so we were looking at the math and the patterns as they were building insects out of blocks. You know we've got three body parts. What are the three body parts? What are the? You know how many legs and where did the legs go? You know we were talking about symmetry. They were doing patterns, and it just took having a fresh perspective to be able to get over that fear and realize you can just have fun with it. 

06:25 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh my gosh, it's such a beautiful example because it's also the real life experience of mathematical thinking. Right, we don't, like you know, for an hour each day, think math thoughts. You know, we're just living life and in life there's so much beauty to the mathematics that exists, like you said, symmetry right. Beauty to the mathematics that exists, like you said, symmetry right, patterns, just like all of the sorting that we do, the classifying, to compare, to say, well, how does this fit with this, how does it shift if I add this other thing and resort it? That's all amazing mathematical thinking. 

07:00
Just the other day we were talking about, like, the vehicles that we could see, and you know, three-year-olds, man, they could love some vehicles, right, but they were ready. Just the other day, we were talking about the vehicles that we could see, and three-year-olds, man, they could love some vehicles, right, but they were ready to compare. How many wheels do they have, right? How long are they? How tall are they? How many people can fit inside of them? What do they carry? Where do they travel? On the land? On the land, is it the road or a train track or grass and all of those things right there and on the land, is it the road or a train track or grass and all of those things, right, there's all these pieces and parts that fit mathematically, but also just the idea that you can ask a question and then you can talk and think and reason to figure it out, and that's mathematical, absolutely. 

07:36 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
You know, you gave a really good example in your workshop about a book that I think every teacher uses, because you brought up the hungry caterpillar. You showed just some of the most amazing ways that you could take what we do with the hungry caterpillar and transform it, incorporate the math, and I wonder if you might share a little bit about that. 

07:57 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh, absolutely Well. So this was some work that I I actually did in my four-year-old classroom. I was really trying to figure out. My kids loved reading. You know I was really into reading aloud books. 

08:06
We were acting things out and I'd always have kids ask questions but I kind of closed. I closed the questions you know like to well, how many apples did they eat? Or how many oranges did he have On what day? And then I would, I would often ask a predicting question like what do you think he might eat on Saturday, and hope that they'd say six of something you know, because he eats one, two, three, four, five. But it was always closed. I always have an anticipated answer. 

08:36
And when I, when I allowed it to open, I had one student say well, how much did he eat? He ate a lot in a week. I was like, oh what, why am I not capitalizing on that question? That's a beautiful question. So we tried to figure it out. We tried to figure out how much did the hungry caterpillar eat over the course of his week, which you know we had some debate. How were we going to count the leaves? How were we going to count that? You know all of the different food that gives them the bellyache, and then you know the food, that, the fruits, that fit that pattern. And so we ended up having to do a lot of retelling and a lot of negotiating to say what would we count? And then we had to figure out some strategies for how will we know, right, like, how many does he actually, how much food does he actually eat, how many items? And so this was a space where I think you and I talked about this at the conference, where I tried to think through what would be some concrete ways for kids to access those ideas and the idea of quantity, but in this context, and then what would be some representational or image-based ways to engage in the work, and then also what might be some more abstract ways that are really mathematical tool ways of thinking about it. And so we ended up with um using cubes, using like retelling with our body bodies, using some real little play food that we had. 

09:59
Um using 10 frames that I had cut out of egg cartons. So I just cut two off, you know, and then we got a 10 frame out of that 12. And then we also cut the pictures from the book and so they would, you know, count out and match with the picture how many objects. And then they would sit them in the 10 frame and put the pictures on top so that we'd be sure, like, yep, we got it all and we get how this matches the story. So that we'd be sure, like, yep, we got it all and we got how this matches the story. This little cube matches you know, this one orange over here, this cake over here. And then we use paper, 10 frames and number lines and hundred charts to actually count how many were there to organize all of that big, you know pile of cubes and big pile of pictures, to see how many all together. 

10:46
And I split my class into a few different groups and they got to work on that and then share so that we got to see different ways that you might think about it. And it was incredible, it's incredible to watch a class of four year olds ask a big question from whatever they're reading, ask a big math question and then simply by kind of leveraging their brilliance around being able to know this story and play, you know, with their cubes or with their pretend food and then translate that into okay, what could that look like to help us solve this problem. How does that look with a 10 frame and a number chart? And they were all there. They were all so excited that they figured it out, and then it led to them asking so many other math questions every time I read a book and it led to me being open to actually hearing some of those big questions that I wasn't expecting and saying, ooh, love it, let's really dig into that. I don't know the answer or how we're going to try it, but we're going to try something. 

11:49 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, and you've hit on two really cool things right there, you know. The first is the idea that you allowed the kids to help guide the questions, and I love the fact that you gave them different ways to explore. I mean, you went from three-dimensional, hands-on really getting your fingers dirty and touching the things to being able to represent that. So you went from models to graphs, which is incredible. I taught four-year-olds too, and I know what they're capable of, and so I love the fact that you didn't underestimate what they could do, because that is just amazing. So I love that piece. 

12:20
And then I love the fact that you were willing to go along for the ride and just play with them and say I don't know the answer, because I think all too often, as you said at the start, we get wrapped up in closed questions and sort of predicting and what is it I want to achieve in this day? And it's when we step back and allow the open-ended stuff that we get those magical surprises. And I bet your kids all will remember their hungry caterpillar math exploration, where they might forget the. How many? You know what came next after the oranges? 

12:54 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Yeah absolutely there. I think some of that space of being willing to hear their question and take that risk with them and be with them. It takes, you know, having some clarity of what are my ultimate goals. And you know, I love that they can count really high, that's great, and that they can recognize their numbers and that they can continue a pattern. But really my ultimate goal is to have them be those critical thinkers, kids that see a challenge and want to take on a challenge right, and who see themselves as mathematicians, who ask these math questions and are willing to do the same thing right, take a risk and just try and see where we go. And when I have that clarity, then it helped me to open up and say, okay, then let me be a model for also not knowing exactly what's going to happen. 

13:43
The other space we had to go was, I don't you know that one. I think there's, you know, some number in the teens or 20s. Right is the total. And I had some kids that you know they were still struggling with counting one to one to 10, right. And then I had some kids that were, you know, counting 30 and beyond. 

14:01
And I know that if I had asked us as individuals, or even in pairs, to work on it, that it would not have been as powerful as when I asked the kids to work as a team and we worked as a team of four kids, maybe five kids at the most, but that really leveraged this idea of we're in a classroom together. So why don't we make the most of that and really rely on each other right, really depend on each other and say I'm not sure, if I have 10 things, can you help me make sure? And you know, I'm not sure how to count this, what's your way? And then I'll practice it too. 

14:33
And you know, we all know, that when peers talk, we listen better. And that's the same with kids, right. When kids are talking to each other, they hear it better. They hear it in their own language, they hear it in their own way of doing things and see it in action and find it more accessible. And so that teamwork approach also helps us to do something as a class that we couldn't have done otherwise, and I love celebrating that. You know that school is this unique place where you get to be in a room filled with peers, so let's celebrate that and let's learn from each other. 

15:06 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Absolutely, and I want to take a moment before we go deeper again and stop and ask you the question how did you wind up becoming the math connector? How did you wind up becoming that teacher that teaches other teachers how to connect math and literacy and early childhood play? 

15:31 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
space because you get to try so many things. So I actually majored in math in undergrad but wanted to be an elementary school teacher, which was really unique, and many people kept trying to push me towards high school math and I would try teaching it and be like, no, no, I really do want to do elementary school. So I started out teaching second grade and then I became a math specialist because you know I was, I love math, math and I happen to have some expertise in math content from my undergraduate degree and so I was able to kind of leverage that and learn more about coaching and intervention and how helping teachers feel confident and safe teaching math, how I could do that. And then I actually went back to school and got my doctorate in math education and I kept focusing on early childhood because you know, that's really a space that we often forget or put aside or say is somehow uniquely different and it's the foundation for every kid and all of the work that we do in early childhood. It just multiplies, you know. It just gets exponentially bigger. Whatever we can do to help kids with language and learning and identity, just it can last a lifetime. And so I was really passionate in that space. And then from there, you know, I've just had the beauty of getting to be in the classroom again teaching four-year-olds, the beauty of getting to be in the classroom again teaching four-year-olds, getting to teach methods, courses for pre-service teachers and math specialists. 

17:01
And then, you know, one of my greatest passions is dorkily reading math research, reading research about education and math and seeing, like, so what does that mean? Because I feel like we all have questions, you know, like well, why isn't this working? Why did that work this time but not this time? Or, listen, I've got only so much time on my Saturday to spend planning, so what should I spend my time doing, you know, and there's lots of research out there, but it doesn't always make it into the classroom space, and so I love reading it, and so I love trying things. And so, you know, it was like the perfect space for me to get to read the research, try things out and then connect with people to help them kind of, you know, feel empowered, know that their expertise matters and get to have that freedom, you know, to also try something out and hear what the research means and connect it to what they're already doing. 

17:52 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. So if you were looking at as you're looking at the research, what are some of the top things, if you wanted to help that teacher on their Saturday and their planning, where should they start? 

18:03 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Yeah, that's big, I love it. Well, some big things in early childhood we know there is. There's actually a fate effect for preschool and that's been documented for a long time that if we focus on things like constrained skills, things that have a ceiling, you know, like count to 10, write your first name, sing the ABCs, know the uppercase letters, you can, you can max out, you can master that and if we focus on that, then we actually start to see this fade in impact, typically by third grade, and sometimes for some kids it can actually become a negative impact depending on other factors, including relationship with the teachers. And so one thing I would encourage is that we all kind of rethink that space and think about what are the unconstrained skills we can focus on in early childhood and how can we make our relationships with students the basis of growing those unconstrained skills. You know. So when I talked about math like I love, I love that they could say well, you know, maybe they would the hungry caterpillar, after eating five oranges, is going to eat six, whatever it might be grapes, and that's great. But my big unconstrained skill that I was aiming at was really asking these complex questions, working as a team, putting some of these ideas together and understanding how we can, you know, ask a hard question and use all these tools to help us get there. So that's one is to kind of think through. So what are the unconstrained skills that you're aiming for and how are you doing that intentionally, how are you doing that in your read aloud, and the ways that you're playing and the ways that you're talking with kids, and the way you have your circle time and the way you're doing you know math or science, if you name it those things, or the way you do your provocations. 

19:55
And then I think the other thing that is enormous is language. It's so powerful and there's just constantly more and more research coming out about the power of language and the interaction and how this space of having a conversational term meaning I say something or ask something and a kid responds, and then I respond and then they respond and we have a back and forth but that is so incredibly powerful for growing kids' brains, growing their language, growing their reasoning, and you know, often it starts out really, you know, potentially nonverbal responses from kids or small little words. But the more you can extend, the more you can talk and have that back and forth exchange, the more impact you'll have. That will last. So I think that would be in the other space to think about well, how much time are my kids talking and how much am I talking with them? 

20:54
And I used to find myself off to watching play and that's great to learn about kids, but then get in it. You know, get in there and play with them. Get in there and have, if you're reading a book, really have a chance to listen, to hear the back and forth conversation you can have about it. So that would be my other thing unconstrained skills and then as many talking interactions, back and forth exchanges, as possible. Try to maximize that. 

21:20 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That makes total sense and with those unconstrained skills we're talking about, what I know is they've also dubbed the 21st century learning skills. I mean that's where your critical thinking, your creativity, the collaboration, the communication, all of that is so vital, because they're growing up in a society where they're going to have access to these and you know it's not so much about memorizing facts, as it is. How do we work together and how do we look at the problems and figure out? How can we work on solutions, like you did with the hungry caterpillar? 

21:53 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
It's such a lovely space too, with, like, self-regulation skills, right, all of those things with executive functioning right. Being able to say how I feel, being able to take a break, being able to seek help from peers All of that is social emotional learning, which is enormous. All of that is social emotional learning, which is enormous. And then when you also put it in the space of well, let's connect that to like, in this instance, solving a problem together that's math problem and you have like a real space where you're practicing all these things that you're learning, and so those are unconstrained skills because they are forever important and they get more and more complex as you get older important and they get more and more complex as you get older. 

22:34
But being able to say like, hey, let's practice this skill for how we're gonna take turns or share, or actually stop and listen and hear your friends, because that's a big deal right in early childhood, that listening isn't just being quiet, actually hearing it yeah, I love that about kids. So, all of that space, I think You're so right. We need to really emphasize all of those sometimes called soft skills, but they're actually really hard to teach and really hard to assess and really hard to master, because you can't really ever master them. You just always are learning something, some new piece of it. 

23:12 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Well, one of the things that I realized and this is fresh on my brain because of last week is in working with these students. I had this opportunity to get them to do things and to see things in a way that their teachers don't see them, because you know, I'm going in as the fun guest, and so we were doing things like having them build habitats as part of an animal lesson. 

23:35
And so a penguin suddenly winds up in upstate New York. How are you going to help that penguin adapt? And they had to think through the things they knew about. You know, space and air and water and food and temperature and all of that. They had to collaborate to use the limited materials we had to create this space. But there was so much amazing conversation and I overheard a couple of teachers saying that was useful because I had forgotten that so-and-so could do this. I get so caught up in the day-to-day of sit down you know, put your bubble in when we walk in the line. You know, listen to your friend that I had forgotten what they were capable of. And I think that when we look at connecting math and science and doing it in the context of these 21st century skills, we're helping kids to find their best selves. 

24:32 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Yeah, and ourselves too, right? No, because those are the moments where, when I gave myself permission to hear this question and think, I'm not sure, but it's, it's that unconstrained skill we're working towards right, being able to work together and problem solve. So let's try it. It's such a gift to me to remember why it is that I'm spending all my time thinking about my students and and that they really can do these amazing things and I can too, as their teacher. So I think, yeah, the more that we can give ourselves, you know, like a little pocket to remember, you know, to pause, spend time with kids. Really remember, you know, the joy of being a kid and the joy of having these big questions and being able to support them through conversation, to help them figure things out, you know, and then even to laugh together, because it's never going to go just right. 

25:25 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I mean, I'm sure you got some like hilarious responses, hilarious ideas and even kids realizing, like I said, that that is funny, you know, and then just laughing together you know, I think that as adults, we need that opportunity to collaborate as well, that we're better teachers and better educators when we can talk to other grown-ups and explore how are you doing this? What worked? You know that's where conferences are so helpful, but it would be lovely if we could do that on a much more regular basis in our schools as well. 

25:58 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Yeah, I feel like my only time that I had to plan to try to connect was during nap time, which was when everybody else I mean you couldn't leave the room. So that was it. Like I had a lot of quiet time alone with the sound of the oceans playing, alone with the sound of the oceans playing, and so trying to find those spaces to connect with people is really important. You know, it's that space to say I don't know, I'm stuck, or you know they, you know they're asking this question and they think it could be cool, but I'm not really sure even how to get started with that. And that space to just problem solve together is so important. 

26:37
It's one of the reasons why I love education, because I love trying to like connect with different people, and so I think it's important to just find maybe it's a partner, that's, you know, like a person, maybe it's a whole team, a kindergarten team as my team, because I was the only preschool teacher in the building and I just begged them. I was like guys, my nap time is at the same time as your planning period, can I just come over or can you come to me once a week? And they're like oh sure, yeah, absolutely, and even though we were doing different things right. Just having that collegiality is so empowering. 

27:12 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
It really is. So I love picture books, and I know you do too. Yeah, you know. One of the things that I was asked recently was well, why do we need diverse picture books in math? And my question was well, why wouldn't we? Don't kids deserve to see themselves reflected in all of the books that we use, and so you know you talked about there's so many books that have math content that maybe we're not looking at and seeing it in. Do you have some favorites? 

27:44 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh, do you know? I actually was just reading one. Jabari jumps. Love that. Oh my gosh, I adore that book. Now listen, I actually think if you just read it one time you might be like I don't really see where there's math in it, right? But so far I've had kids come up with two different ideas for questions. One is around what shape pool and what size pool did Jabari jump into? So you can kind of in it Sweet. Jabari is trying to figure out if he's brave enough to jump off the diving board and his dad and his little sister are waiting at the bottom and there's one amazing image of just his toes at the edge of the diving board looking down. 

28:26
And you know every kindergartner that was listening to the book was like been there, that is terrifying, or I love that feeling. It was one or the other. And so we did. We talked about, well, what, what shape is that pool right? How many tiles big could it be? And so we did kind of a version of other problems that I've seen, um, and just put it in the context of that story. So we said, well, let's say it's 24 tiles big, how many different ways could you rearrange to make different shape pools for Jabari to jump into? And so, yeah, and they were so excited to rearrange and you know, eventually did we decided does it have to be a rectangular shape or can it be any shape? You know, because then they were making really amazing things, um, so that was one, and then we did another about how tall was that ladder Right? And they, they actually did some really cool construction to try to figure out how tall could that ladder be and how could they reconstruct, to tell that story again. So, yeah, I love that book and I think it's really. 

29:32
It's really trying to see the book through the eyes of kids. Trying to see the book through the eyes of kids and then also sometimes it helps if you have another grade that you can talk with, because you'll hear some of these math problems they're doing and be like, oh, we could do that math problem here. I see that you know, like I see how we could do this. It has 24. How can I rearrange it, which you know is a really great problem? And you know, around third grade grade, when kids are working on multiplication, right, what are all the factors of 24 is one of the things you can figure out with it. So, and they'll have already played with it exactly, yeah, yeah, jabari jumps. 

30:08
I love it, and there's a sequel to it too, or there's a second book in that series. 

30:12 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Jabari tries, I think is and it's about trying to make sort of the um rocket or the airplane that will fly. 

30:19 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Yeah and so then we read that also and that like went a little, um, that went more into our construction. But we actually talked about the shapes that they were putting together to make something and how, even when you take a shape and put it with another shape, you can rename that shape. And so you know, just playing words, which is something that we do a lot with, like rhyming. You know, like a lot of books that just do wordplay, it's around rhyming or putting together like funny compound words to make a new compound word. But you could also do like some wordplay with shape names. Right, you know, like make a cool. You know triangle hexagonal shape and try to figure out what might you name it if it has. You know a triangular prism and a hexagonal prism on bottom. So that was a fun one. 

31:07 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's very cool. Yeah, I've been playing a lot with unplugged coding with kids too. 

31:11
Sort of that idea of following sequences and can you direct somebody through a maze? So, like sam and dave, dig a hole. There are these amazing, um, plastic gems that you can get and you could literally lay out. You know you have your gems, can you lay out your path and then can you guide somebody through it, giving them front, back, side to side directions. So you're doing and you could set up your grids. You could have them take two steps forward. But you can take any book and come up with a challenge kind of like that. You know, I've done it with Little Red Riding Hood, where you're working your way through to try to avoid the wolf while getting to grandma's house, so you have to code the path around. But it gives them a chance to really think through some of those questions and you know, oh well, what if there's a pit of candy over here? Can we go into the pit of candy, you know? And they can come up with these other stops to add on the way, which is really fun. 

32:09 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh my gosh, that's amazing. 

32:12
I love that you're doing it off fairy tales, because I think that's often a space of expertise and comfort, right confidence for early childhood educators like I know fairy tales and folk tales, and it's actually a really great space to look for versions of fairy tales and folk tales that are diverse, right to make sure, because there's tons of authors that are recreating or telling another version and that's an incredible space because then all of the things that you've already done with those stories previously to explore all sorts of ideas you can do, but you can read it in a book where kids can see themselves right and can see, you know, all the amazing people in their community or in the world in that book. 

32:55
Still, and then there's a whole bunch of folk tales that I didn't dive into until I kind of opened my, my eyes to this discretionary space of being able to choose books, right, like we get to choose which books we read, and so we, um, we read, like every Anansi book that there is and my kids love, and every single one that there's a problem to be solved, there's a desire to retell and react out and even change a little variation or a little version of it and there's tons and tons of cool spaces for kind of exploring some math ideas, problem solving, science, all in those series. And then the series kind of leverages kids' comprehension, because they're like oh, I already know Anansi, I know what he's going to do in this, he's going to do a trick and it's going to be silly, so yeah, and I love that. 

33:48 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
That's part of what I actually do as I travel. The country is I take fairy tales and folk tales and work with teachers to look at how do we connect STEM and STEAM to it, so, and folktales and work with teachers to look at how do we connect STEM and STEAM to it. So it's definitely exactly what you said finding the diverse tales and being able to say you know, you've done it this way with the three little pigs, let's consider trying it this way. 

34:07 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh my gosh, it's amazing. Well, now we're going to have to have a whole talk about that sometime, because that's amazing Absolutely because it is so much fun. 

34:14 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
So that'll be another conversation. So talk about the books that you've written. I know you've got the you co-authored the Math Diet or co-created that but you've got a bunch of other books as well. If educators want to dive deeper, what can they do? 

34:28 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh, thank you, that's kind of you. So I have two books in early childhood. One is Visible Learning in Early Childhood. That's based off of the research from John Hattie, the visible learning research, and you know his work around growing visible learners, which is really what we do in early childhood. Right, we grow learners who own their learning, who can talk about it, who can drive the learning. We think about the whole person, right? And and so it takes that research and says here's what that looks like in early childhood, here's what we're already doing and how we could do it even better. 

35:00
And then, paired with that, there's the early childhood playbook and that is really like a space to try to put everything in action. How do you plan for unconstrained skills? How do you work with this big team of you know, the general educator, the paraprofessional, all the special educators, like all the people that fit into early childhood how do you partner with them and families and learners to help learning move forward? So those are the two big early childhood books, and then I have several books in math around visible learning in math, K2, 3.5, and then a new book out, the math playbook, and that's, you know, another effort to say we all know math and if we can get to a space where we're all feeling positive about trying math, bringing math into our classrooms, seeing math in the brilliance that kids bring in, whether it's verbal or nonverbal, then we're more likely to leverage that and highlight that and help grow that and then pass them to the next grade, feeling really empowered. 

36:05
And you know who knows, maybe they'll go into a mathematical career but maybe they won't. But the things that you can learn through that mathematical thinking is useful forever. You know all of the reasoning, collaboration, communication, that's you know that's everywhere. Representation golly, all of the most amazing artists are people who do representation. 

36:25 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
Absolutely, and there's so much math and art, and so I guess then the last question is if folks would like to bring you out to work with them, how do they contact you? 

36:34 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
Oh, thank you. Well, my, so my email is katierifunder at Gmail. That's just my first name. Last name I also have a website with my collaborating teacher. We were teaching right across the hall from each other, and now she's working on her doctorate and I'm working with schools. Her name is Alicia Demchek, so our website is mathplusliteracycom. And then, if you're interested in those books, they're published by Corwin and there's also a way to connect with me through the Corwin website. 

37:05 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
And I'll make sure I drop all those links in the show notes because I definitely want people to be able to find you. So the very last question, the one I love to finish with everybody, is what brings you hope and the? 

37:16 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
one I love to finish with everybody is what brings you hope. 

37:17
Oh, you know what, really? The fact that every time I talk with an educator, whether they are like excited or totally nervous because it's their first year or their first time changing to that age, or they're feeling exhausted and burnt out and alone, the love of children and who they are, that it's always the center of our work. You know, kids, they're just amazing. Each and every single one of them brings so much beauty to the world. And when we kind of come back to that space when we're talking, you know, teachers talking about individual kids, it always brings this like light and smile, you know, and hope. Even when they're kids that have really been challenging, you know, there's always something about them that we find to love and cherish, and so that's always hopeful to me, because when we love and cherish every kid, you know, we'll be able to harness their creativity and their brilliance and and bring it. We'll be able to harness their creativity and their brilliance and and bring it to light for everyone to see, and I think that's the work that we're doing as early educators. 

38:25 - Dr Diane Jackson Schnoor (Host)
I love that. Kateri Thunder, thank you so much for joining us on the Adventures in Learning podcast today, and I'm really feeling like maybe we need to do the fairy tale steam episode down the road. So if you all want to do that. Please drop a comment, because I think that would be a fun one for us to do. 

38:43 - Dr Kateri Thunder (Guest)
I can't wait to learn from you with that, and I would love that exchange. Thank you so much for having me, diane. This is amazing.