1500 feet of black, yellow, red, blue and white yarn. Each sectioned off into three feet segments with each student getting three feet of each color in order to create what this young man is holding in his hand. Add to that teaching an ancient skill to a contemporary group of kids and yo
This is the second most enjoyable lesson I have taught. As I had set it up the students were first anthropologists (going through the background of the Inca) and then Inca people creating an amazing communication system.
I'll be honest. Ethnomathmatics and primary genetic drift research were my two most favorite classes while I was at UCLA. The quipu and its very simple yet easy to understand concept (occam's razor stuff here), was fascinating. When I found out that I was teaching about the Incas my first thought was- they can make a quipu!
Lesson learned.
1. Wow, it took me about 6 hours to get this lesson ready.
2. The kids really liked it (and it stuck given later test scores).
3. We ran out of time to finish the quipus- not great.
4. Be wary, as other teachers had warned, of incorporating things like this during state testing.
This is the second most enjoyable lesson I have taught. As I had set it up the students were first anthropologists (going through the background of the Inca) and then Inca people creating an amazing communication system.
I'll be honest. Ethnomathmatics and primary genetic drift research were my two most favorite classes while I was at UCLA. The quipu and its very simple yet easy to understand concept (occam's razor stuff here), was fascinating. When I found out that I was teaching about the Incas my first thought was- they can make a quipu!
Lesson learned.
1. Wow, it took me about 6 hours to get this lesson ready.
2. The kids really liked it (and it stuck given later test scores).
3. We ran out of time to finish the quipus- not great.
4. Be wary, as other teachers had warned, of incorporating things like this during state testing.