• Welcome
    • The digitizing project
    • What was Childcraft?
      • Organization of Childcraft
      • Getting to know Childcraft
      • Introducing Childcraft in the home
    • Reading to your Child
  • The Books
    • 1 – Once Upon a Time
      • Nursery Rhymes
      • Stories & Poems
      • Folk & Fairy Tales
      • Favorite Fables
      • Things to Know
    • 2 – Time to Read
    • 3 – Stories and Poems
      • Stories
      • Poems
    • 4 – World and Space
      • Our Home, the Earth
      • Oceans, Lakes, and Rivers
      • Air, Wind, Clouds, and Weather
      • Mountains, Valleys, and Plains
      • Planets, Stars, and Galaxies
      • Rocks, Stones, and Petrified Bones
    • 5 – About Animals
      • The Animal Kingdom
      • It’s a Mammal
      • It’s a Bird
      • It’s a Fish
      • It’s a Reptile
      • It’s an Amphibian
      • Many-Legged Creatures
      • Animal Ways
      • The Animals’ World
      • The World of the Sea
      • Staying Alive
      • Living Together
      • Animals of Long Ago
      • Vanishing Animals
      • Domestic Animals
      • People and Animals
    • 6 – The Green Kingdom
      • Seasons of Life
      • Plant Ways
      • Nature’s Neighbors
      • Strange and Surprising Plants
      • How Does Your Garden Grow?
      • Famous Gardens
      • Meet the Trees
      • Plants of Long Ago
      • People and Plants
      • Saving the Plants
      • True Tales and Tall Tales
      • Look for a Lovely Thing
    • 7 – Story of the Sea
      • Animals of the sea
      • Water world
      • Fish
      • Birds
      • Coelenterates
      • Crustaceans
      • Echinoderms
      • Mammals
      • Reptiles
      • Mollusks
      • Sponges, sea squirts, and worms
      • Strange stories of the sea
      • Might and majesty of the sea
      • People and the sea
      • People who work on the sea
    • 8 – About Us
      • Brothers and Sisters, Moms and Dads
      • Fingers and Forks
      • How Do You Know?
      • Let’s Go to My House
      • Living in Two Worlds
    • 9 – Holidays and Birthdays
      • Holiday Time
      • January
      • February
      • March
      • April
      • May
      • June
      • July
      • August
      • September
      • October
      • November
      • December
    • 10 – Places to Know
      • Oh! And ah! Places
      • Queer, Quaint, And Curious Places
      • Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World
      • Treasure Places
      • What’s In A Name?
      • All That’s Left
      • As Good As Old
      • Just For Fun
      • Where Animals Are Famous
      • Where Battles Were Fought
      • Where Land And Water Meet
      • Where Nature Gets In The Way
      • Where People Worship
      • Where They Run A Country
    • 11 – Make and Do
      • Nature Crafts
      • Paint and Print
      • Papier-Mache
      • Puppets and Plays
      • Sew and Stitch
      • Gifts to Give
      • Hook, Weave, Knot, and Braid
      • Let’s Dress Up
      • Let’s Play Games
      • Let’s Play with Clay
    • 12 – How Things Work
      • What’s the Matter?
      • Currents and Sparks
      • Full of Energy
      • Hear All About It
      • Hot and Cold
      • Let’s Get Moving
      • Machines Make It Easy
      • More Things That Work
      • Seeing the Light
    • 13 – Mathemagic
      • How long, how fast, how hot, how heavy?
      • People who work with numbers and shapes
      • Points, lines, shapes, and designs
      • Puzzle fun!
      • What are your chances?
      • What can you do with numbers?
    • 14 – About Me
      • Becoming Me
      • I Speak, I Listen
      • I Wonder, I Think
      • Inside and Outside of Me
      • The Many Me’s
      • There’s Nobody Exactly Like Me
      • Watch Me Grow
      • What Does Me Mean to Me?
      • What I Can Do
    • 15 – Guide to Childcraft
      • The New Baby: Birth to 18 months
      • The Toddler: 18 months to 3 years
      • The Preschooler: 3 to 5 years
      • The School-Age Child: 5 to 8 years
      • The Preteen: 8 to 13 years
      • Health and safety
      • For Special Consideration
      • Medical Guide
  • Random Post
  • Contact
  • Welcome
    • The digitizing project
    • What was Childcraft?
      • Organization of Childcraft
      • Getting to know Childcraft
      • Introducing Childcraft in the home
    • Reading to your Child
  • The Books
    • 1 – Once Upon a Time
      • Nursery Rhymes
      • Stories & Poems
      • Folk & Fairy Tales
      • Favorite Fables
      • Things to Know
    • 2 – Time to Read
    • 3 – Stories and Poems
      • Stories
      • Poems
    • 4 – World and Space
      • Our Home, the Earth
      • Oceans, Lakes, and Rivers
      • Air, Wind, Clouds, and Weather
      • Mountains, Valleys, and Plains
      • Planets, Stars, and Galaxies
      • Rocks, Stones, and Petrified Bones
    • 5 – About Animals
      • The Animal Kingdom
      • It’s a Mammal
      • It’s a Bird
      • It’s a Fish
      • It’s a Reptile
      • It’s an Amphibian
      • Many-Legged Creatures
      • Animal Ways
      • The Animals’ World
      • The World of the Sea
      • Staying Alive
      • Living Together
      • Animals of Long Ago
      • Vanishing Animals
      • Domestic Animals
      • People and Animals
    • 6 – The Green Kingdom
      • Seasons of Life
      • Plant Ways
      • Nature’s Neighbors
      • Strange and Surprising Plants
      • How Does Your Garden Grow?
      • Famous Gardens
      • Meet the Trees
      • Plants of Long Ago
      • People and Plants
      • Saving the Plants
      • True Tales and Tall Tales
      • Look for a Lovely Thing
    • 7 – Story of the Sea
      • Animals of the sea
      • Water world
      • Fish
      • Birds
      • Coelenterates
      • Crustaceans
      • Echinoderms
      • Mammals
      • Reptiles
      • Mollusks
      • Sponges, sea squirts, and worms
      • Strange stories of the sea
      • Might and majesty of the sea
      • People and the sea
      • People who work on the sea
    • 8 – About Us
      • Brothers and Sisters, Moms and Dads
      • Fingers and Forks
      • How Do You Know?
      • Let’s Go to My House
      • Living in Two Worlds
    • 9 – Holidays and Birthdays
      • Holiday Time
      • January
      • February
      • March
      • April
      • May
      • June
      • July
      • August
      • September
      • October
      • November
      • December
    • 10 – Places to Know
      • Oh! And ah! Places
      • Queer, Quaint, And Curious Places
      • Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World
      • Treasure Places
      • What’s In A Name?
      • All That’s Left
      • As Good As Old
      • Just For Fun
      • Where Animals Are Famous
      • Where Battles Were Fought
      • Where Land And Water Meet
      • Where Nature Gets In The Way
      • Where People Worship
      • Where They Run A Country
    • 11 – Make and Do
      • Nature Crafts
      • Paint and Print
      • Papier-Mache
      • Puppets and Plays
      • Sew and Stitch
      • Gifts to Give
      • Hook, Weave, Knot, and Braid
      • Let’s Dress Up
      • Let’s Play Games
      • Let’s Play with Clay
    • 12 – How Things Work
      • What’s the Matter?
      • Currents and Sparks
      • Full of Energy
      • Hear All About It
      • Hot and Cold
      • Let’s Get Moving
      • Machines Make It Easy
      • More Things That Work
      • Seeing the Light
    • 13 – Mathemagic
      • How long, how fast, how hot, how heavy?
      • People who work with numbers and shapes
      • Points, lines, shapes, and designs
      • Puzzle fun!
      • What are your chances?
      • What can you do with numbers?
    • 14 – About Me
      • Becoming Me
      • I Speak, I Listen
      • I Wonder, I Think
      • Inside and Outside of Me
      • The Many Me’s
      • There’s Nobody Exactly Like Me
      • Watch Me Grow
      • What Does Me Mean to Me?
      • What I Can Do
    • 15 – Guide to Childcraft
      • The New Baby: Birth to 18 months
      • The Toddler: 18 months to 3 years
      • The Preschooler: 3 to 5 years
      • The School-Age Child: 5 to 8 years
      • The Preteen: 8 to 13 years
      • Health and safety
      • For Special Consideration
      • Medical Guide
  • Random Post
  • Contact
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Counting machines

The abacus was the "great grandparent" of many other kinds of counting machines, such as the adding machine, the cash register, the computer, and the electronic calculator. It's easy to see where we...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Counting like a computer

When you see a 1 and 0 together, you would say they stand for ten. But to a computer, they stand for two! We count with ten numerals---0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. But a computer uses only two, 1...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Eko, eno, esa

If you speak English, you start by counting, "One, two, three.. .." If you speak Spanish, you start by counting, "Uno, dos, tres. . . ." And if you speak Ashanti, a language of Africa, you start by...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

The invention of nothing

One of the most important things ever invented was---nothing! But how can nothing be important? And how can nothing be invented? To understand, we have to go back to the abacus. To show the number...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

A gift from Arabia

The numerals now used by Arabic-speaking people are not much like the ones we call Arabic numerals. Only the 1 and the 9 are like ours, as you can see in this multiplication table from a book written...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Fancy fingers

Have you ever seen a clock like the one in the picture below? The marks on the face of this clock are called Roman numerals. The Romans were people who lived in Italy long ago. We still use their...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Arrowheads, letters, dots

Babylonia was an important kingdom in the Near East about five thousand years ago. The Babylonians invented one of the first forms of writing, and wrote many texts on mathematics. They did their...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Fingers, flowers, and polliwogs

> As tribes became nations and villages became cities, people had more > things to keep track of than ever before. Merchants had to keep > records of the things they traded to other merchants. The...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

Make your own abacus

An abacus is a lot of fun to use. And you can make one very easily. To make an abacus like the ones used long ago, you'll need forty pebbles and a piece of cardboard, wood, or stiff paper. With a...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
Fingers, pebbles, and wiggly marks, Mathemagic

The marvelous counting machine

Imagine that it is five thousand years ago and that you are a rich merchant in the ancient city of Babylon. You have a curly black beard and a purple robe with yellow fringe at the bottom. You're...

Manuel
March 3, 2024March 3, 2024
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