Secret Meanings: Discovering Numbers with Colors

1. Welcome Thank you for using this pre-visit resource. We believe this will help strengthen student learning leading up to and during your gallery visit. Due to the different versions of PowerPoint schools may use, please check for, and correct any formatting issues before you use this presentation with your students. Please check by viewing in slide show format before making any necessary changes. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me. Te Tuhi Learning Experiences Outside the Classrom Phone: (09) 577 0138 Salome@tetuhi.org.nz

2. SECRET MEANINGS Te Tuhi pre-visit lesson 2 For Year 3-4 students Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pwilley/1491573602/

3. Welcome to Secret Meanings Before we start let’s recap on what were learnt in our last lesson. During this lessons we learn about… • Colours and numbers Image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cuisenaire-Rods-2.png

4. the clothing we wear and us • trees, plants, sea and the sky • the food we eat In the last lesson we learnt that colour can be seen on • our homes and buildings • On animals we see

5. Colour is on a lot of things but how can colour mean numbers?

6. Georges Cuisenaire (1891 – 1976) School teacher Georges Cuisenaire was passionate about helping students understand numbers. So he came up with an idea using colours. Let’s see what he came up with. Image: http://www.memory4teachers.co.uk/channels/presentations/cuisenaire/images/dr2.png

7. 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 1 7 7 One day Georges decided to focus on 10 numbers and 10 blocks. Let’s count from 1 to 10. Each number was a different size. The bigger the number the bigger the block.

8. 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 1 7 7 Let’s see how we can use these blocks to help us with our maths.

9. Here are a few examples…

10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1 To make this block Now our block is the same size. 2 1 the same size as this block, which block do I need to add? Let’s try another one… 1 + 1 = 2

11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2 To make this number Now our block is the same size. 1 3 the same as this number, what do I need to add? Let’s try one more… 1 + 2 = 3

12. 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 To make this number Now our block is the same size. 2 5 the same as this number, what do I need to add? 2 + 3 = 5

13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 6 To make this number Now our block is the same size. the same as this number, what do I need to add? 3 9 3 + 6 = 9

14. If you have Cuisenaire blocks at school try solving some maths problems of your own.

15. 2 3 4 5 6 8 9 10 1 7 7 If you don’t, print these blocks in colour, cut them out and use them.

16. Michael Parekowhai 1 2 5 3 Let’s move on to the next column Let’s move on to the 3rd column Complete the last column which looks like this… As we can see each column equals 14. New Zealand artist Michael Parekowhai has made a towering sculpture at Te Tuhi inspired by Cuisenaire blocks. Let’s start with the left column 6 1 There are 4 columns and if we count all the colours used in this sculpture there are 10 colours altogether. We can see he has stacked all his blocks into columns. Lets try to add up the numbers for each column. 7 Use the Cuisenaire rods to help you. 10 9 8 4 14 14 14 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

17. As we have seen, colour can mean numbers Let’s recap on what we have learnt so far…

18. So what have we learnt so far? Colour 2 • can represent a number 1 3 • can help us solve maths problems 1 + 2 = 3 • can inspire artists and their artwork

19. We hope you enjoyed learning about colours and numbers. In the next lesson we will learn about colours and words. End of lesson