Maths and large numbers

“What is Mathematics”. For many school pupils it is simply something you do at school. It is apparent to many that addition is useful… when applied to the small numbers that they encounter every day. The consequence of this is that pupils generally understand the addition of small numbers and can “do” it. However, when big numbers are used, very often the context of the numbers isn’t apparent to the child. This is when they find performing the calculations difficult. For many children a thousand is such a huge number that it might just as well be termed “many”, and if this is the case, then ten thousand is also unimaginably big and too might be termed “many”. Hence there is, in the child’s mind, no difference between these two numbers. To get these children to understand big numbers we need contexts in which big numbers are used. The cynic will suggest currency, on the basis that in due course our governments will inflate away our savings and even ice creams will cost millions, but until this happens children, who have an appreciation of the quantity of money required for everyday living, will not respond. At Puppet Maths we have adopted space travel as our vehicle for explaining huge numbers. This is a fertile field for drama in which the child can get involved, and it is a place where their imagination can be given free rein, while they are being introduced to the concept of large numbers. We believe that if we can make the use of numbers fun, and children will pick up the concepts without effort.