I love to challenge kids to look at math from a different perspective. Third graders took some time in December to do just that. We explored different origins of numbers through different culture's number systems - specifically the ancient Egyptian and Chinese systems. At the same time, we explored the origins of our own numbers and number system from its Hindu-Arabic roots. Through this work, we were really looking at the ideas of place value (how a number in our system has value based on its position,)of using 0 (as a place holder,) and of how efficient our number system (it certainly takes less time to write!) We played games trying out a base-3 system (which by the way, requires a lot more trading than a base-10 system!) We tried writing numbers in Egyptian (and found out that drawing is maybe not everyone's strong point - especially a kneeling pharaoh with arms outstretched if you have to write 1,000,000!) Chinese numbers took some time to write but we found out it has some similarities to our system too (it is a base-10 system that relies on value for symbols based on placement within a number.) While we only spent a few days of class on these concepts, I think the students have a better appreciation for the evolution of math and how lucky they are not be drawing multiple frogs and fingers to add in math class!
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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