The Maya & Numbers

The Year 5 children have been engaged and captivated when learning about statistics. They have enjoyed reading and interpreting tables, bar charts and line graphs. Finding the right scales to use when drawing their own graphs wasn’t child’s play, but when they understood the range of data on a table, it was as easy as ABC! They can now read and interpret complex graphs that have both line and bar charts on the same graph.

Knowing how to present data on a graph is particularly relevant because the children will employ the same knowledge in Science lessons next week. This week, they have carried out and recorded results for a Science enquiry on a comparative and fair test. They will be presenting this data using their newly acquired skills.

The children have also had to recall previous knowledge each morning with assigned tasks on our Maths display board (pictured at the top). This is a great way to assure retention of prior topics.

Did you know The Maya also had a good understanding of numbers? In History, we are learning about The Mayans and that they developed a complex number and counting system which was advanced for their time. Interestingly, the Maya people used just three symbols in their number system.

These symbols are thought to represent items that the Maya people might have first used to count with, such as pebbles, sticks and shells. Using these symbols, the children worked out how to represent their date, month and year of birth.

Ms Mwatsuma asked them what they thought about using these symbols in their Maths lessons. Their responses were as follows:

“It will be too hard and it will take too long…”

“It would be straight up stress and confused and confuzzled…”

“It would be hard…”

“Hard, not fun, stressful…”

“It would be the same, but different numbers because we would be used to it…”

“I think it would be very hard and confusing…”

Perhaps, then, it's a good job that we don't use them!