Mayans, Manipulatives, and MN Standards (Week 2-1510)

I'm learning how to teach place value to students. Hmmm, how do I teach something that seems like common sense? I think back to how I learned it....and I can't remember. It turns out that most students really seem to struggle with understanding place value. They don't understand that 39 and 93 are two different values. The numbers we use today are Hindu-Arabic symbols. But before we used those, there were Egyptian symbols. So, one way to explain place value is to go over the way the Egyptians used to write it. They used symbols to represent each place value. For example:

So if i wanted to write the number 4,312 in Egyptian I would draw 4 lotus flowers, 3 scrolls, 1 heel bone, and 2 vertical staffs in a row. Many different activities can be created by having students decode their Egyptian symbols.

Students should also be taught about The Mayan base-20 number system. This system's most important historical contribution was the clam shell which represents 0.

What amazes me most is the history that students learn. While going over place value, students begin to grasp the concept of how numbers and value were created. Students learn their purpose and also begin to critically think. They are applying what they do with writing numbers every day and using that knowledge to figure out how to write those numbers in a different "language" so to speak.

This ties in to our Minnesota Math Standards which state that students need to learn important mathematical concepts, skills, and relationships with understandings. My ideal grades to teach are K-2 or Special Education students. I may not be teaching in-depth algebra or things very complicated but my role as a teacher will be important. It will be required (according to MN Standards) that students learn what numbers represent. I feel that this where the students learn the relationships that numbers have in their life. They learn that they can use their fingers to represent a mathematical equation. This is the time where they learn their problem solving and critical thinking skills. This is the time where I wrap up and keep on studying!