Archives → Number
Lift Buttons
Whilst often used as a textbook example, I had never seen negative numbers used in a lift before.
Tables Spider
In 2007, I wrote about a resource, a Number Spider, that I used as a lesson starter.
What if the largest states of Australia had the biggest populations?
You might have seen this map featured around the place recently:
So I wondered, what if the largest countries had the biggest populations?
Follow-up to WCYDWT: Spacing Evenly
I showed WCYDWT: Spacing Evenly to some of my classes this week. A couple of reflections…
WCYDWT: Spacing Evenly
A real-life version of this problem presented itself today.

(Source: Elementary Math Mastery, Rhonda Farkota)
Letters and Numbers
Jeff of Webmaths points out a new Australian TV show, Letters and Numbers.
Guessing to learn
This week, my Year 8s have been looking at inequality signs, graphing inequalities and solving simple (one-step) inequalities. Today, after solving inequalities, we played a simple game. A simple, obvious game, that really doesn’t warrant a blog post.
Words for operations
I’ve been meaning to try ClassTools.net for a while. With ClassTools.net you can make interactive Flash games, from a range of templates, then save and share them.
Million, billion, trillion
I used to think that I knew what 1 billion was, i.e. 1 000 000 000 000. Then a couple of years ago, I looked on Wikipedia and found there were two defintions: Long and short scales.
The Big Picture
If you don’t have The Big Picture from boston.com in your RSS feeds, it’s time to add it. Alan Taylor regularly collects some fascinating photos together. This edition, At work.
The Story of 1
Here’s a video about the history of number, in particular the numbers 0 and 1. Our Year 7 program begins the year looking at ancient number systems, so this video will fit in nicely.
