Objective
To help students understand place value, we venture beyond our typical decimal number system and explore a Base 9 system. Students will be exposed to ancient Babylon's Base 60 system and computers Binary and Hexadecimal before creating their own number system.
Steps
- Students consider what a "numeral" is and just how many we actually use.
- We discuss our ten numerals and how the base 10, or decimal, system works. Then we introduce base 9, pondering what 8 + 1 would equal in a system without a symbol for 9.
- We dig further into Base 9, asking students to complete a worksheet transforming base 9 numbers into base 10.
- After correcting the worksheet, we explore real world number systems: Babylonian, Binary, and Hexadecimal. Finally, students develop their own, non-base-10 system and create two-digit numbers using this worksheet.
Resources
Teachers love Byrdseed.TV!
"Love, love, love Byrdseed TV... I used many ideas and lessons this year. The kids loved the lessons and were engaged!" ~ Tiffany in California
"I am the coordinator for our district gifted program. Byrdseed.TV is one of my favorite sites and one of the best investments I have made for the program." ~ Jeannette in California
"I just subscribed to Byrdseed.TV and am loving it -- though it is kind of scary addictive in a binge-watching kind of way (that, by the way, is a compliment)." ~ Elizabeth from Florida