In our school division we have PAAL schools. The teachers in these schools will choose a goal and work with coaches and superintendents towards the achievement of their goal throughout the school year. When contemplating an area I would like to grow in, my passion (math) and my desired area of growth (FNIM incorporation into teaching) melded. Therefore, my focus this year is ways to incorporate FNIM (First Nation, Inuit, Metis) content into mathematics. The purpose of this blog is to share ideas, thoughts, lessons and methods I've tried in my classroom.

Monday, January 13, 2014

Cree Numbers

One resource that my math coach turned me to in order to help me work towards my goal of incorporating FNMI content in my classroom was Tammy Taypotat, an Educational Psychologist with the Good Spirit School Division No. 204.  Ms. Taypotat has taught in our division for a number of years and had a plethora of great ideas to share.

One idea I gravitated quickly towards is having Cree number words displayed in the classroom.  I already had a traditional number line (numeral, tally mark representation, number word) and thought that this was an easy idea to implement as all I needed to do was add to what I currently had.

When I started researching Cree number words I quickly found it to be a daunting task as there are many different dialects - Plains Cree, Woodland Cree, Swampy Cree.  Since the area in which my students reside is Plains Cree, I decided to adhere to that dialect.  Therefore, I did much cross checking between various resources and came up with a document with Plains Cree number words and symbols for the numerals 1-20.  It is my hope that all the words, spellings, symbols, phonetic symbols are accurate and truly reflect the language of the Plains Cree (to the best of my ability).  If there are any discrepancies, please let me know so I can make the correct amendments.

I have attached the document for those who'd like to use it in their classroom as well.





When the students came in and saw the additions to our number line they were very excited and wanted to know how the words are pronounced.  In my research, I found a website where the words are said orally which I knew would be a great resource.


Every day we're going to count in Plains Cree, starting with 1-5 and building on from there, and will use the above website to guide us towards correct pronunciation.  The symbols in addition to the words are a great example of another way numbers and words can be represented.  I also found it interesting how there are patterns in the Plains Cree numeral words and their corresponding symbols.  I'm looking forward to having students compare these patterns with those of the English language number words.
Posted by at

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)