Digits at the Medieval Math Club

33 kiddos showed up at the Medieval Math Club this week. I started by reviewing some of the terms we learned last week. One boy stretched out his arms and announced, "Fathom!" Another child remembered step. Someone held up fingers and said, "Digits." Which brought us to the biggest question from last week - How many digits do I have on my hands? (Last week I counted 11. 10-9-8-7-6 on one hand and 1-2-3-4-5 on the other. 5+6=11 Right?!?)

For the past two days I have had two boys who were at math club the week before trying to sneak a peek at my fingers during face painting at VBS. One of them stopped me in the parking lot. "Do you really have eleven fingers?" he asked. His brother shouted, "I want to count your fingers." When they would come to my face painting station, they would try to count my fingers on my left hand. I sat on my left hand and continued to paint with my right hand. "Not until math club!" I would gently remind them.

"How many digits do you have?" I asked the group. "Ten!" the children shouted. "How many digits do I have?" I asked with a mischievous grin. Some kids said, "Eleven." Some shook their heads and said, "You told us eleven, but everybody has ten." Back and forth it went for a minute, "Ten, eleven, ten, eleven." Then someone said, "We want to count your fingers." I showed the children how I counted 10-9-8-7-6 on one hand and then 1-2-3-4-5 on the other. "You need to count forwards on both hands," someone suggested.

I asked the two brothers to come up. They gleefully counted forward from 1 to 10. Triumphantly they held up my tenth finger and shouted, "She has ten. We knew it!" A boy from the back screamed, "Liar!" (Directed at me for the deception.) I shook my head. "It's a trick. You can do it, too." As a whole group we practiced counting backwards on one hand and forwards on the other.We read Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci by Joseph D'Agnese. Check out the link below for more info.

http://www.blockheadbook.com/Blockhead/Welcome.html

Next week: Base Ten