Maya Math

My Spanish class is primarily a culture class, and we are focusing one day on each country in the Spanish speaking world, with a bit of language thrown in. We usually start with presentations on different festivals and holidays that students have prepared, and then do some group work, then a lecture on culture from that country, and then some kind of interactive or fun activity related to the country in question before moving on to some basic conversational skills.

Today we were studying Guatemala, and based on some of the materials from the DMNS Maya exhibit, I decided to have an activity on Maya math. We used toothpicks and sunflower seeds to create numbers- some basic, and some more complicated, and then completed a maya math worksheet. Students had a great time creating math problems for their partners, and then trying to solve them!

Trying to explain that the Mayas used a base 20 system was complicated when students don’t speak English all that well, and I am not a math teacher. The basics are that bars are worth 5, and dots are worth 1, adding up to 20, and then they get more complicated. I finally gave enough examples that they seemed to understand a bit, and once I assured them that it was just an activity to try out in class, and would not be on the final exam, they relaxed enough to have fun, even when they didn’t quite get things right.