Say it ma-theater or math-eater, both names can fit. A "Matheater" video is one that is created by a theatric "crew" of children ... under guidance by one or more adult "producers" ... and accepted for publication in this Matheater section of the MatheLite Project's website. The Matheater site includes a library of such videos.

In each Matheater video, child-actors perform childhood activities which other child-viewers can enjoy watching, and might be able to perform. Each performance also is laced with some instruction in basic-literacy mathematics. However, the video's value for instructiing its viewers is far less important than whatever is learned by the production crew ... about the arts and technologies of creating instructive videos ... everthing from composing the screenplay to editing the final product.

The challenge of filming "a math story" ... that might help others to learn something that they need to know ... provides the young "crew" with a focus, purpose, motivation and a gratification that cannot be got from simply playing with the camcorder. The simplicity of natrual mathematics makes it easy for children to understand what message they are trying to convey ... and to sense how well they are doing it. It also enables them to better understatnd how math instuction works (and why it often does not). It seems reasonable to expect that a flurry of childhood production and viewing of Matheater videos would nurture children's interests in math, and soften the harshness of curricular math programs.

Picture a Tulsa-area network of many theatrric crews, each generated by a family, club, friendship group, school, scout troop, child care center or other organization serving school age children ... each generating its own videos, in hopes that those would be (internationally) published on the Matheater site ... and perhaps even winning a trophy. The Tulsa-area's Children's Community Matheater is more tbat its published library of video clips ... it is the entire network of theatric crews, and the system that motivates, coordinates, and honors their efforts.

The MatheLite Project manages the Matheater site, provides the criteria that qualify the videos for weg-publication on that site, and assists the adult Matheater "producers."

Each crew is self-initiated and self-governed. It "joins" the network by simply registering with the Community Matheater. It joins when intending to produce and publish purposeful, educational, community-service amateur video stories ... whose viewers can learn some points in basic-literacy mathematics.

The Matheater network is managed by the MatheLite Project's Community Addvisory Council. The Project publishes a Matheater Directory of registered Matheater crews, and of their videos that qualify for listing as Matheater Movies. Of course, any crew is free to publish other movies on their own blogs. Their Matheater membership requires only that every published movie meet decency criteria of "appropriateness" ... and "inappropriate" publication is grounds from removal from the network.

Children's involvement in theatric productions of mathematics-as-common-sense videos can give them rich, gratifying, creative, educational experiences in the performing arts and in audio-visual communications ... while they also gain a much stronger comprehension of mathematical points, and much deeper grasp of the human nature of mathematical thinking and learning.

For a video to qualify for being published as a Matheater movie:

the video must show some kind of "story" ... possibly a "how to ..." story
the star actor(s) must be children ... the younger, the better
the video should thoroughly include credits (with pictures) for all key members of the crew ... including the adults ... with descriptors of what roles they played in the production.
the video's screenplay (script, camera directions, props, staging instructions, etc) should be appended, as text, at the end of the movie.
the video story should be intended to entertain its viewers, attract them to identify with the actions, and inform them of something they are grateful to learn ... including something about basic-literacy mathematics.
woven through the video-story must be a mathematics-as-common-sense message
the video should not directly teach that math, except as part of an entertaining video story
viewers should easily and naturally learn the math by watching the vide
the video's math-message must be described, in text, as a mathematical story board appended at the end of the appended screenplay

What a GRAND opportunity for school age children to gain meaningful, significant, beneficial, life-shaping, educational, community-service experiences ... with a degree of adult guidance and assistance. In fact, some of the above criteria are required exactly for purposes of sharpening students abilities with written and audio-visual communications ... and their understandings of the creative/analytic nature of the mathematical arts. Later, additional criteria might be imposed to further enrich the educational benefits for the Matheater children.

The qualifying Matheater Movies are to be e-published for world wide viewing and recognition ... and for world wide assistance to others. It is conceivable that a continuously running competition would continually honor the currently best Children's MatheLite film in each math topic that normally troubles students. Who has produced this year's best Matheater video on long division?

The MatheLite Project's academic staff generates a series of mathematical story boards for its own use as mathematical skeletons for the Project's own video MatheLite Activity Guides. Matheater crews are welcome to use the same mathematical story boards for creation of other screenplays and videos that inform viewers about the same math-points ... but do it through their own video stories.

It is not required that the math story boards used by Matheater crews come only from the MatheLite Project. However, in order for a crew's video to qualify for acceptance as a Matheater movie, its own mathematical story board must meet Matheater criteria for relevance and naturalness. So, the safest route is to get Matheater acceptance of the crew's own mathematical story board before finishing the screenplay and before starting the filming.

The Children's Community MatheLite Matheater is still a vision waiting to happen. When that vision becomes widely shared, it will happen. As a first step in that direction, the Suntken family created their own "Zoo-gebra" math movie as a way to help shape visions of a Tulsa-OK Matheater network.

Many thanks to them. Their production is on YouTube. Although it does not meet the stadards for a Matheater Movie, it might help illustrate how families can participate. Now what is needed is a Matheater Steering Committee of community volunteers to transform that vision into realities.