Sumer: Stories with Puppets and Base 6 math with Sumerian Counters

 We have really enjoyed using the activities in the Ancient Civilization History Pockets. We completed their section on Sumer... including puppets to make stories.
Sumerian stories. I also presented them with this pouch... which was full of Sumerian counters. We had lots of fun playing with them, thinking about base 6 instead of 10. 

Books:

• Lugalbanda: the boy who got caught in a war, Kathy Henderson
• Gilgamesh, the king, Ludmila Zeman

"Anno's Mysterious Jar"

We read Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar and learned how easily just one thing can multiply when you keep doubling it. I then asked them to suppose that I gave them just a penny for their allowance, but that I agree to double it each day... we decided to just do a week's worth of allowance and we used glass counters to count the days. I gave them bean counters to represent the pennies I was giving them. By the time we had finished our doubling for the week, Quentin couldn't count that high, so he sorted his counters by type.

James lost track trying to count the beans, so Sam suggested that they group them into groups of 10. They found out that just one penny doubled each day for a week would end up with 128 pennies by the end of the week. What would it be by the end of a month?....or a year?!

"How Did Numbers Begin?"

"1. Matching could have been the first important step in the story of numbers.
2. The second important step in the story of numbers might have come about from matching. It is these three ideas: "as many as," "less than," and "more than."
3. The third step in the story of numbbers also probably came from matching. It is the naming of numbers.4. Numbers must be put into their proper order.
5. Last of all in our story of numbers: counting."

-How Did Numbers Begin? by Mindel and Harry Sitomer

"Imagine that you are living at a time when your people have just learned to tame wild animals. They drive their herds out to pasture each day. Since they need these animals for food and clothing, it is important not to lose any. You are the herder. You know nothing about numbers, and you cannot count. What can you do to make sure all your animals are back each night? You might use a scheme like this: You put down a pebble for each animal as you drive it out to pasture. Later, you pick up a pebble for each animal that returns." -How Did Numbers Begin? by Mindel and Harry Sitomer, p. 6.

"If you have one or more pebbles left over when your animals are back, you know you have to go out to look for the strays. If you have one or more animals and no pebbles left to match them, you know you have a bigger herd than you started with."-How Did Numbers Begin? by Mindel and Harry Sitomer, p. 9.

"The King's Commissioners" or the Value of Multiplication

I poured out 47 counters on the table and gave the boys the problem of figuring out how to count them as quickly as the could and still be accurate. James suggested that they count them into groups of 5. Quentin then said that we should combine the groups of 5 into groups of ten. Sam then wanted to try all the combinations to make sure that none of them came out even.

We then read The King's Commissioners by Aileen Friedman. "A confused king has appointed a commissioner to handle every problem in the kingdom from flat tires to chicken pox. Now he has no idea how many ccommissioners there are, and he orders his royal advisers to gather and count them as they walk through the door. The first adviser counts by twos, the second by fives, and the little princess by tens. Of course, they all arrive at the same answer. The king is utterly perplexed, but his daughter clears up the mystery and readers learn the value of multiplication." -School Library Journal

"The Lost Button" or Buttons of All Sorts

Buttons can be a great math manipulative. To make a literature-math connection, read "The Lost Button" in Frog and Toad Are Friends. Using buttons, either real ones or paper ones, for props for each of the buttons he finds is a great interactive way of reading the story.

Then you can further explore various types of buttons. Have each student pick out their favorite button and play a game in which you announce an attribute and have them raise their hand if their button has that attribute. This can get really fast-paced.

Then hide a button and play a hide and seek type game using "warmer" and "colder" for indicators as to how close the seeker is.

Another early reader that features the concept of sorting and buttons is 3 Little Fire Fighters. In this story three small fire fighters need to get dressed for a parade, but are all missing their buttons. They mix and match the buttons several times until they can find a way for them all to have matching buttons. We then sorted our buttons in all kinds of ways such as by color and by size.

Sometimes sorting is not as easy as one would think. As my son Sam said, "Sometimes it is hard to tell where one leaves off and another begins."

Then play a game in which your students pick buttons, but do not let them tell what criteria they have sorted them by. Then you and the rest of your students have to guess in what way each student has sorted! Sorting can get more sophisticated and can involve shades of color and number of button holes.

Your students can now make their own paper buttons, designing them any way they want. Once they are completed, you can begin graphing them in several ways, using different criteria. Use a piece of posterboard or a dry erase board to make your graph and they can place their buttons on where it is appropriate. First you can graph them according to how many holes they have and then you can graph them according to what shape they are, continuing on for as long as you want. This a great beginning graphing experience and you can later move on to more symbolic bar graphing.