Category Archives: Math and science

Teaching Arithmetic Using a Wall Chart with Moveable Illustrations

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Here’s a new acquisition for anyone interested in the history of math education, graphic design, or the use of wall charts in the classroom.   It’s a very large poster with various moveable illustrations for teaching elementary arithmetic that was published in the Soviet Union sometime during the 1930s.

Arifmetika measures 67 x 103 centimeters and is backed with linen to make it sturdier (in the corners there are two large grommets for hanging it on a wall).   It was to be used during quarters 1 and 2 in second grade when the fundamentals of addition, subtraction, and multiplication were taught.   There is a partly legible stamp on the back, that could be a property stamp from a school in one of the former Central Asian republics.

Cotsen_Arithmetika_Poster

Arifmetika. [Moskva?]: Narkompros,1937. (Cotsen 7220451)

Cotsen_Arithmetika_Poster

Below is a detail of the chart’s upper right hand corner.  You can make out the little booklet mounted landscape wise that contains the multiplication tables for 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Cotsen_Arithmetika_Poster_3rd

Cotsen_Arithmetika_Poster_4thAbove is the lower right hand corner, with the rest of the credits running above the lower edge.  Arifmetika‘s illustrations are credited to A. I. Saychuk and the press run was 2000 copies.   Many thanks to Thomas Keenan, Firestone Library’s Slavic Bibliographer extraordinaire, for help translating the hard bits  (Pikov Andropov wasn’t delivering any public figures to campus this week or we would have flagged him down in the Firestone turn-out).

 

 

Solve these Word Problems from Arithmetic Made Familiar and Easy (1748).

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Yesterday I was looking at the three editions of Arithmetic Made Familiar and Easy to Young Gentlemen and Ladies, the second volume in The Circle of  the Sciences published by the famous 18th-century English children’s book publisher, John Newbery. Arithmetic is written in the form of a catechism, or a series of questions and answers.  Contemporary educators considered the catechism a more lively way to communicate information than a lecture because it was a kind of conversation.  To engage the young reader, the compiler also included information about the abacus and change ringing as a kind of arithmetical progression.  There were instructions for adding up an invoice for the purchase of apples, gingerbread, marbles, and oranges or for calculating the costs of x number of yards of lace so children knew how to check bills for mistakes or overcharges.

On to the puzzlers in Arithmetic Made Familiar.   The first is in verse and was a golden oldie, having been in circulation at least since 1708, where it appeared as an example of “vulgar arithmetic” in The Ladies Diary or Womens Almanack.

When first the Marriage-Knot was ty’d / Betwixt my Wife and me, /  My Age did hers as far exceed / As three times three does three: / But after ten and half ten Years /  We Man and Wife had been, / Her Age came up as near to mine, / As eight is to sixteen.

Now try the second puzzler:

A Man overtaking a Maid who was driving a Flock of Geese, said to her, Good-morrow, Sweetheart, whether are you going with your 99 Geese?  Sir, said she, you mistake the Number; for if I had as many more, and half as many more and one fourth Part as many, then I should have but 99.  The Question is, how many Geese she had?

The answers will be posted next week.