Tag Archives: numeracy

20 Fingers and Toes

Posted on May 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

“Twenty is perhaps the oldest, most natural large number for mankind to relate to, for it is the number we achieve by counting up all our fingers and toes. Echoes of this unit (called Vigesimal) can still be found in both the French and English language. The French still express eighty as ‘quatre-vingts’ (four twenties), while English keeps a special word (‘score’) for this number, as in the expression ‘four score and ten.’ And until decimalization was introduced in 1971 the English monetary unit was still so ordered, with twenty shillings to the pound.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

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A Lesson Plan on the Percentages of Chemical Elements that Compose Earth from The Order of Things

Posted on May 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is another lesson plan from The Order of Things, this one on the percentages of chemical elements that compose this planet. Here is the list and comprehension questions that constitutes the work of this lesson. If you have any questions about this material, please see the excursus on worksheets from The Order of Things in the About Posts & Texts page, linked to above the banner photograph.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on Deserts on Earth by Size from The Order of Things

Posted on May 11, 2020 | Leave a comment

From the pages of The Order of Things, here is a lesson plan on deserts, specifically, their areas by square kilometers and square miles. This, like the other lessons I’ve composed and posted from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, is a simply exercise in symbolic analysis–i.e. reading numbers and words at the same time and synthesizing them to grasp the facts that they represent. To that end, here is the reading and comprehension worksheet, in Microsoft Word, so it is flexible for your needs.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on Climatic Zones from The Order of Things

Posted on May 5, 2020 | Leave a comment

From the pages of The Order of Things, here is a lesson plan on climatic zones and they way they are organized, as well as the worksheet with list and comprehension questions that constitutes the work of this lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on Continents’ Population and Surface Area from The Order of Things

Posted on April 27, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is yet another lesson from The Order of Things, this one on Continents’ Population and Surface Area. You’ll need this worksheet with the list and comprehension questions to complete this lesson.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on the Readmission of Confederate States to the Union During Reconstruction from The Order of Things

Posted on April 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, this lesson plan on on the readmission of the Confederate states to the Union during Reconstruction, as I look at the others like it I have posted, is most likely redundant in extremis. Nonetheless, here is the list and comprehension questions that drives this relatively short exercise.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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Erwin Schrodinger

Posted on April 20, 2020 | Leave a comment

Over the years there has been very little demand for this reading on Erwin Schrodinger and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet. In fact, only one student in 17 years of teaching, who had somehow come across the concept of “Schrodinger’s Cat,” asked for it, which is why it exists. I wrote this for one particularly bright (and ineptly misplaced in a self-contained special needs classroom) and inquisitive student about 15 years ago, then forgot about it.

If you can use it, there it is.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on the Latin Word Roots Graph and Graphy

Posted on April 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

OK, last but not least this morning, before I head out to the grocery store (aside: don’t forget to thank the brave workers staffing our grocery stores–if there is any justice in this world, they will emerge from this pandemic among–to use another word deriving from. the Latin root pan–among the pantheon of heroes), here is a lesson plan on the Latin word roots graph and graphy. These mean writing, written, recording, drawing and science; you will recognize immediately, even before looking at the scaffolded worksheet at the center of this lesson, that these are two very productive roots in English.

I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the verb record, which is used both intransitively and transitively.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on the Civil War Secession of States from The Order of Things

Posted on April 16, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here’s another lesson plan from The Order of Things, this one on the secession of states preceding the American Civil War. This worksheet with a list and comprehension questions related to it constitute the work for this lesson.

As I’ve previously mentioned, I was just beginning to develop these materials (in fact, as I write this, a pile of worksheets awaiting development sits before me on my desk) when the school I was working in closed for the year. In fact, I’ve already posted several lessons derived from Barbara Ann Kipfer’s book, including those on the readmission of seceded states after the Civil War. Needless to say, those logically ought to follow this one, not precede it.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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A Lesson Plan on Hesiod’s Ages of History from The Order of Things

Posted on April 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

Here is a lesson plan on Hesiod’s Ages of History along with its reading and comprehension questions. As I’ve mentioned previously when posting these materials, this lesson (and at least 30 others like it) are something I started working on just before the COVID19 pandemic scaled up and closed schools, and I lost my job as a public school teacher.

To reiterate (and you can read more about these on the “About Posts & Texts” page linked to just above the banner photograph on the homepage of this site), these documents aim to give students an opportunity to work with, and develop their own understanding of, moving between two sets of symbols, words and numbers, in one lesson. The worksheet can be contracted or expanded as is appropriate for the attention spans of the students with whom you’re working. These are, as you will infer, literacy development exercises.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

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