Week 6 Reflection – Mathematics, Movement, and Embodied Understanding

 Summary of Campbell & Von Renesse – Learning to Love Math Through Explorations of Maypole Patterns

Campbell and Von Renesse explore how mathematical understanding can emerge through embodied, collaborative exploration using Maypole dancing and ribbon weaving as a medium. Rather than beginning with abstract notation or symbolic representation, the authors position movement and colour as entry points into structural reasoning. As students repeat crossing movements around the Maypole, woven patterns emerge that show repetition, rotation, and movement across the design.

The article emphasizes that learners often discover mathematical structure before they have formal language to describe it. As dancers rotate and interlace ribbons, visible patterns emerge that reflect underlying algorithms. Each change in movement sequence produces a new woven structure. In this way, choreography becomes geometry, and repetition becomes mathematical reasoning.

A key theme in the article is joy, not as entertainment, but as intellectual engagement. Students are not passively following rules; they are constructing them. They experiment with colour order, crossing sequences, and movement rhythm. The resulting patterns are not decorative accidents; they are the frozen traces of embodied mathematical decisions.

Ultimately, the article argues that mathematics can be experienced as relational, aesthetic, and communal. Movement becomes a legitimate pathway into abstraction. 

Three “Stops” While Reading

Stop 1 – I Had to Illustrate the Patterns to Make Sense of Them

As I worked through the woven Maypole images, I realized that I could not understand the patterns by simply looking at them. I had to draw them. Recreating the structures allowed me to isolate repeating units and identify strand directions.

Rather than reading the colour sequences horizontally, I began tracing structural paths and searching for rigid shapes that repeated. The act of drawing shifted my thinking from noticing colours to identifying generative rules.

Illustrating the patterns became a form of mathematical reasoning. It forced me to slow down and reconstruct the logic embedded in the weave.

I began to struggle when I reached Figure 20, so I reorganized the pattern in my mind using letter notation. Labeling the sequence as BB BB WR helped me isolate where that structure actually appeared within the image. Instead of scanning the pattern visually, I traced the sequence systematically to locate its repetition. Once I adopted this strategy, I continued using it with all the remaining figures. Creating my own simplified representations that matched the assigned letter sequences made it much easier to identify the structural logic of each pattern. Reconstructing the images in this way allowed me to see the repetition more clearly and understand how the sequence generated the overall design. 

Stop 2 – It Felt Like Tetris

At one point, the patterns began to feel like a Tetris game. I found myself identifying composite blocks small rectangular units that could rotate and translate across the pattern. Instead of reading strings like BB BR GW, I began seeing rigid shapes that interlocked.

This shift changed my perspective from linear sequence to spatial transformation. I began thinking about rotation, translation, and symmetry rather than simple repetition. The patterns were not just alternating colours; they were tessellations generated through movement.

Stop 3 – A Cartesian Plane Might Have Helped

Another pause came when I wondered whether placing the patterns on a Cartesian grid would clarify the structure. If I could mark repeating intersections and locate centers of rotation, I might more easily identify the translation vectors and symmetry points.

Some patterns were easy to sit with; others required sustained concentration. I imagined physically cutting out shapes and placing them on a grid to test rotational symmetry. This reflection revealed how embodied mathematics and formal geometry could support each other rather than exist separately.

Reflections on the Videos

The videos reinforced the idea that mathematics lives within movement.

The early video featuring adults reflecting on childhood mathematics revealed how deeply math is embedded in lived experience: cooking, knitting, climbing stairs in different configurations, playing with geometric toys. Movement and structure often precede formal naming.

Malke Rosenfeld’s Jump Into Math! talk was particularly compelling. Watching her create rhythm with her feet demonstrated how mathematical relationships can be heard and felt. Rhythm becomes number. Timing becomes ratio. Her classroom integration of body percussion shows how conceptual understanding can be strengthened through coordinated movement.

The Rhythm of Math videos further emphasized this idea. The clapping sequences required intense concentration and collaboration. The 3-against-4 rhythm made proportional reasoning tangible. You could hear the mathematics at work.

The string and sword dance videos connected most directly to the Maypole reading. Watching dancers maintain a closed loop while executing precise sequences highlighted the algorithmic nature of movement. The patterns were not accidental, they were generated through rule-based choreography. The visible concentration on the dancers’ faces reinforced that maintaining structure requires attention to sequence and symmetry.

Across all videos, one theme remained consistent: movement makes structure visible.

Final Activity Reflection

Adrienne Clancy – Dancing Rotations

Adrienne Clancy’s discussion of rotation, including the Earth’s 23.5º tilt, reframed rotation as lived experience rather than static diagram. Watching her embody rotation emphasized that angles, axes, and symmetry are not merely drawn; they are enacted.

This resonated deeply with my own classroom practice this week.

I read Pitter Patter Pat to my Kindergarten–Grade 2 students in the library. The book explores patterns in time, nature, and dance. After reading, we stood together and created a simple movement pattern involving clapping, stomping, and jumping. The students physically enacted the pattern.

In that moment, mathematics was not abstract. It was rhythmic, communal, and embodied.

Our school is currently focusing on respect for self and others, including body awareness. Movement-based mathematics supports this work. Coordinated rhythm requires listening, awareness of space, and attention to others.

This week affirmed that mathematics is part of the palette of choreography. It shapes how we move, how we see structure, and how we understand the world. Whether through Maypole weaving, rhythm, sword dancing, or children’s storybooks, mathematical ideas emerge through embodied engagement.