In the deep green forests, where trees touch the clouds, stood the most beautiful school far and wide. The Forest School of Mrs. Owl was home to the cleverest little animals from the entire neighborhood.
"Today we will learn to count with nuts and pinecones!" announced Mrs. Owl. "Each little animal will get their own basket with counting objects."
Rabbit Philip got a basket full of forest nuts. "One, two, three, four, five! I have five nuts!"
Squirrel Susan had beautiful pinecones in her basket. "I have three big ones and two small ones. That's five pinecones altogether!" she chirped joyfully.
Little Bear Bruno proudly showed his acorns: "I have seven acorns!"
Then the bell rang for recess and all the little animals ran outside to play. After recess, however, something strange happened. When they returned to the classroom, their baskets were almost empty!
"Where are my nuts?" cried Philip. "I had five before, now I only have two!"
"My pinecones disappeared too!" Susan wept. "Only three out of five are left!"
Little Bear Bruno sadly looked into his basket: "And out of my seven acorns, only four remain!"
Mrs. Owl thoughtfully tilted her head: "This is truly a mystery. We must solve it! Philip, how many nuts disappeared?"
Philip thought: "I had five, now I have two. Five minus two equals three. Three nuts disappeared!"
"Excellent!" praised Mrs. Owl. "And you, Susan?"
"I had five, three are left. Five minus three... that's two! Two pinecones disappeared!"
"And Bruno?"
"Out of seven, four remain. Seven minus four is three. Three acorns disappeared!"
Mrs. Owl nodded: "Now we know how many things disappeared. But we still don't know where they are. Let's search!"
The little animals divided into groups. After a while Philip called out: "Look! Under the washbasin are two nuts!"
"And here's one pinecone from the bookshelf!" added Susan.
Bruno found one acorn behind the big book. But that still wasn't everything.
"Wait," said hedgehog Isaac wisely. "Maybe nobody wanted to steal our counting objects. Maybe they just rolled somewhere when we were playing!"
"You're right!" exclaimed Susan. "When we were chasing each other, we were jumping a lot!"
Mrs. Owl smiled: "That's a very good idea. Let's look under the desks and tables!"
And indeed! Under Philip's desk hid one nut. Under the bench they found another of Susan's pinecones and two of Bruno's acorns were found behind the flowerpot.
"Now let's count whether we found everything!" suggested Mrs. Owl.
Philip arranged his nuts in front of himself: "I had two in the basket, we found two under the washbasin and one under the desk. That's altogether... two plus two plus one... five nuts! We found them all!"
Susan clapped joyfully: "I had three in the basket, we found one pinecone in the bookshelf and one under the bench. Three plus one plus one equals five! I have all my pinecones!"
Bruno beamed: "I had four in the basket, plus one behind the book and plus two behind the flowerpot... four plus one plus two... that's seven acorns! All of them!"
"You see?" smiled Mrs. Owl. "Sometimes things just get lost, but if we think logically, we usually find them. And in the process, we have practiced both addition and subtraction!"
Philip jumped: "And I learned that five minus two is three, and also that two plus two plus one is five!"
Bruno laughed: "Mathematics is like detective work! We have to follow clues and count evidence!"
Mrs. Owl clapped her wings: "Exactly! And now we can play a little more with our found counting objects."
When the bell rang at the end of class, all the little animals were looking forward to the next day. They knew that mathematics isn't a monster, but a fun game full of mysteries.
"Don't forget," Mrs. Owl called to them at the end, "if something gets lost at home, try to think where it might have ended up. And don't forget to count it!"
The next morning Philip came to school with a big smile: "Mrs. Owl, yesterday evening I couldn't find three colored pencils at home. But I remembered our mystery and found them! Two under the bed and one in the kitchen. And now I'm not missing a single one!"
And so the forest school became a place where the little animals learned that every mystery has a solution, if we use our heads and don't give up searching.