A Handful of Stars

Before the child learns the cipher '5', let them first meet the living five-ness that streams through fingers, petals, and the starfish.  —study from The Kingdom of Childhood

When bringing numbers to young children, I notice how easily the moments drift toward chalk and symbols. The symbol of five is drawn tidy onto the blackboard, and the class recites the multiples of five with perfect dictation, yet, they have not met its true gesture (this number's quality is still a stranger). Then something inside of me realizes that numerals only settle when the soul has an embodied experience. 

Steiner hinted that numbers are 'real' before they become a mark on a paper or a table recited. This living presence is more easily recalled when the children begins to move in fives: heel-toe-heel-toe-hop together! And suddenly the number five is no longer a stranger, but a friend who has been there all along. 

The hand becomes a five pointed star opening like a flower. Then tales are told of how each limb offers help, showing how five lives in good deeds, serving the human being, and now the child is actively searching for its shape in the natural world. 

Each inner picture awakens wonder. Each rhythm awakens the will. And then only can intellect claim its clear domain. If we reverse this order, we risk leaving the child among the shadows, only memorizing numbers and their multiples passively, while the 'cipher grows cold and distant.

Perhaps this is what Steiner meant when he asks us to "protect the kingdom of childhood." For thinking was never meant to be a museum of dead facts. When a number is first touched, moved, and sung, its written symbol retains its warmth, meeting the world with living thought, rather than mere calculation.

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AND

Learn more about my book: In the Land of Living Numbers

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Read from other blog post below.

The Wonder of Childhood

Before Letter, Lines and Curves

From Thread to Thought