Just been reading the Dr Seuss Book of Sleep (or some other such story) as a bedtime story to Davies. It touched somewhere on the concept of minus two and he roused from his near-asleep state to ask what that meant. Erm!
Very easy when you know but one of those situations where I am left stuttering like a too advanced thesaurus when he asks the meaning of a new word and all I can offer as explanation is a series of other words he also is unfamiliar with. I need an example… I tried asking him what he would have if he had two and then took away three but he was having none of that. He told me that if he had two and then had two more he would have four. He told me that if he took two away from four he would have two and then if he took two away from two he would have nothing. And of course you can’t take anything away from nothing can you Mummy?!
Clearly not a bedtime friendly concept to start explaining anyway but would appreciate anyone’s tried and tested examples for minus numbers.
The book then (and at the back it says ‘This book is to be read in bed!’ clearly it is lying!!) goes on about numbers like millions, billions, trillions and zillions so I had to explain about them being ‘really big numbers’ to which he pounced back on his unsatisfactorily answered question from the train journey the other week about what the ‘last number’ is. I repeated that there isn’t one, to which he said ‘of course there is one Mummy, it’s just that no-one knows what it is yet!’
Just as well we’re off to Reading this weekend then, Lije can take over some of the HE for me 😉
Temperature- mine all clicked to this.
floors in a building works (ground floor, basement), or ladders. Exeter maths has a thermometer next to its introduction of negative numbers, which I posted to the list about a few days back.
No idea – but is that the book with Horton Hears a Whoo?
Floors- that’s a good one!
well, SB did that today, and I said that if she had no sweeties, and saw i had 2 left, she would have -2 sweeties, cos the next time she had any, i would eat 2 of hers- rofl!!
but rofl at the clearly unsuitable educational materialyou use as bedtime reading -rofl rofl!!
Also have the book, but SB only listening to farawy tree at bedtime. nothing on numbers there!
oh, and she ate them.
if i could edit my commetns, would have rolled these into 1!!
Yeah I was going to say temperature/thermometer, as well a number line with +ve -ve numbers on. I think kids probably need tp start of with something concrete to get a handle on this
Merry, it’s this one:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0007169930/qid=1132821978/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_10_1/203-6077844-2851930
I knew if I went no mail I would miss something relevant 😉
Thermometer could work but is then introducing a whole new concept at the same time which may well confuse the issue about numbers. I like the lift / floors idea and Barbara also suggested sea level as zero with above and below the sea existing (except she probably put it better than that!)
Does your car display temperature? That’s where mine first saw minus numbers.
Well yes it could be confusing if the kids aren’t much aware of measuring temp. I think SB probably is happy with the concept of measuring temp and what thermometers are for as we have a few around that we have used. The floor one doesn’t grab me really – except for say basements do you get many negative floors? The sea one sounds a good suggestion though (I expected Barbara to ahev good sugestion)
Floors worked here – once you’ve been in one basement, the idea of going even deeper down amused them greatly. Temperature works if they know about it already! Owing money was a good one too 😉