This post has been revised to incorporate all the suggestions in the comments below, plus many more activities. Please update your bookmarks:
Or continue reading the original article…
Egyptian Math in Hieroglyphs
Egyptians wrote in hieroglyphs, a type of picture writing, and in hieratics, which were like a cursive form of hieroglyphs.
Hieroglyphs came first. They were carved in the stone walls of temples and tombs, written on monuments, and used to decorate furniture. But they were a nuisance for scribes, who simplified the pictures and slurred some lines together when they wrote in ink on paper-like papyrus. This hieratic writing — like some people’s cursive today — can be hard to read, so we are only using hieroglyphic numbers on this blog.
Download this page from my old newsletter, and try your hand at translating some Egyptian hieroglyphs:
- Hieroglyphic addition and subtraction (pdf 47KB)
Then try writing some hieroglyphic calculations of your own.
Edited to add: The answers to these puzzles (and more) are now posted here.
To Be Continued…
Read all the posts from the September/October 1998 issue of my Mathematical Adventures of Alexandria Jones newsletter.
Number Bonds = Better Understanding
[Rescued from my old blog.]
A number bond is a mental picture of the relationship between a number and the parts that combine to make it. The concept of number bonds is very basic, an important foundation for understanding how numbers work. A whole thing is made up of parts. If you know the parts, you can put them together (add) to find the whole. If you know the whole and one of the parts, you take away the part you know (subtract) to find the other part.
Number bonds let children see the inverse relationship between addition and subtraction. Subtraction is not a totally different thing from addition; they are mirror images. To subtract means to figure out how much more you would have to add to get the whole thing.
Negative Numbers for Young Students
[Rescued from my old blog.]
Would you like to introduce your students to negative numbers before they study them in pre-algebra? With a whimsical number line, negative numbers are easy for children to understand.
Get a sheet of poster board, and paint a tree with roots — or a boat on the ocean, with water and fish below and bright sky above. Use big brushes and thick poster paint, so you are not tempted to put in too much detail. A thick, permanent marker works well to draw in your number line, with zero at ground (or sea) level and the negative numbers down below.
Order of Operations
[Rescued from my old blog.]
Marjorie in AZ asked a terrific question on the (now defunct) AHFH Math forum:
“…I have always been taught that the order of operations (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction) means that you work a problem in that order. All parenthesis first, then all exponents, then all multiplication from left to right, then all division from left to right, etc. …”
Many people are confused with order of operations, and it is often poorly taught. I’m afraid that Marjorie has fallen victim to a poor teacher — or at least, to a teacher who didn’t fully understand math. Rather than thinking of a strict “PEMDAS” progression, think of a series of stair steps, with the inverse operations being on the same level.
The Game That Is Worth 1,000 Worksheets
Have you and your children been struggling to learn the math facts? The game of Math Card War is worth more than a thousand math drill worksheets, letting you build your children’s calculating speed in a no-stress, no-test way.
Math concepts: greater-than/less-than, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, negative numbers, absolute value, and multi-step problem solving.
Kids Do the Craziest Things
[Rescued from my old blog.]
My youngest daughter wanted to do Singapore math today. Miquon Red is her main math text this quarter, but we add a bit of Singapore Primary Math 1B whenever she’s in the mood. We turned to the lesson on subtracting with numbers in the 30-somethings. The first problem was pretty easy for her:
30 – 7 = []
I reminded her that she already knows 10 – 7. She agreed, “10 take away 7 is 3.” Then her eyes lit up. “So it’s 23! Because there are two tens left.”
Denise Gaskins' Let's Play Math 