Maya people live today in southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize and Honduras. Long ago, Maya scribes carved and painted numbers with three signs: a dot for 1, a bar for 5 and a shell for zero, one of the earliest signs for zero anywhere. Maya numbers count in twenties, with places stacked from the bottom up: 1s, then 20s, then 400s. For counting days, Maya calendar keepers made the third place 360 instead of 400; these pages use true base 20 and say so. The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian's Living Maya Time site has more about Maya math and the calendar.
Five pages of place value with Maya numerals. Page 1 has every numeral from 0 to 19 to read. Page 2 has numbers to draw as Maya numerals and two tables of bars and dots. Page 3 reads two-place numerals in a chart and works out what each place is worth. Page 4 adds two numerals by putting their dots and bars together, some making a new 20. Page 5 writes four numbers in base 10 and in base 20 and draws each as a three-place Maya numeral. The first problem on each page is a worked example.
Start with the key at the top of page 1 and count a few numerals aloud together: bars first by fives, then dots by ones. On page 4, have students say when they trade five dots for a bar and four bars for a dot in the 20s place, the same as trading ten ones for a ten in our numbers.
Write the date, a phone number digit or your age as Maya numerals with beans for dots and sticks for bars, and use a shell or a button for zero.
This pack supports the following Common Core State Standards for Mathematics:
© Copyright 2010. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers. All rights reserved.
Place value with the Maya number system, which counts in twenties with a dot for 1, a bar for 5 and a shell for zero. Students read and write Maya numerals, work out two-place numbers, add by putting dots and bars together and compare base 10 with base 20.
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