NumbersGirls Engaged in Math and Science

June 2012

How many is this?

What are some different ways we can write that?

•others?

•10 •||||||||||

•|||| ||||

•2x5 (this works, but there are LOTS of things

that equal ten)

•ten

•X (Roman Numeral)tete

nntetenn

what is this?

THE WORD “TEN”•What are written words made of?

•How many letters are there in the English alphabet?

•How many words can you make of them? Just a guess?

10101010

What is this way of writing numbers made of?

Numerals•How many numerals are there?

•Starting from zero, what are the numerals?

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9• How many numbers can you make out of these numerals?

• How come we have ten numerals?

• Is it because we have ten fingers?

Aliens!!! What if we were aliens with only two fingers??

How many numerals would we

have?

2 Numerals•How many numbers could we write

out of 2 numerals?

•What is the problem with this?

Could a person or alien with two fingers do this?

No, but.... •How do you represent 55 with your

fingers?

•Let’s see how we could do the same type of thing with only two digits.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

0 0 11

0 0 11• Okay!! Let’s start counting with two

numerals!!0 1

• Is that it?

Poor aliens! •Wait! What do we do on this planet

when we run out of numerals at 9?

•10

•Why?

•You have put more than one numeral here and you’ve already used these numerals, how can you use them again?

•What column do you put the 1 in?

•Why is it called that?

What does this 1 and 0 mean when written in different

columns?

10one ten no ones

Is the “tens column” called the tens

column because TEN is the first number that needed a new

column for you to be able to write it?

What is the next number that needs a new column?

•What do you have to change to get from nineteen to twenty?

1920

one ten nine ones

two tens no ones

The aliens are back! •If we go back to the two

digit counting, we have:

0 1

we ran out of digits so we need a

new column.

10

TWO’s Column

10one twozero ones

this is NOT ten in the

alien world, it’s two!

11one two one one

this is NOT eleven in the alien world, it’s

____?

Even though 10 meaning two seems

funny to you, it’s because from the time you were a

little baby, you were taught that it is

called ten, not two.

Alien children are taught that 10 is two. You can get used to it,

alien children do!

10 10 means means two!! two!!

10 10 means means two!! two!!

0

1

10

11

100

101

110

111

1000

1001

1010

10101010 100100100100zero

one

two

three

four

five

six

seven

1000100010001000eight

nine

ten

1011eleven

1100twelve

1101thirteen

1110fourteen

So, NOW how many numbers can you write with

two numerals? •So, who uses this stuff?

What’s this?

How many positions does it have?

If you were going to give each position

a number instead of

writing “on” and “off”

what numbers

would you use?