Monday, 2 October 2023

Drawing on a few more of dad's illustrations By Steve Way

 

Having received several kind comments regarding dad’s illustrations, from fellow ABBA bloggers Susan Price and Sue Purkiss and from friends who read the blogs – and because I couldn’t think of anything else to put forward or write about this month! – I decided to post a few more of his drawings this month as well. To my delight in the act of searching for some of the pictures I particularly wanted to share, I discovered several others that I had completely forgotten about. I also haven’t yet rediscovered others that I’d like to share but hopefully I’ll be able to do that in the future.

When teaching maths to children I came up with the idea of an unusual car, the ForD X 100. The idea was that the name of the fictional high-performance car acted as a code for the idea that ‘A fraction or a decimal times 100 equal a percentage’. I discussed this notion with dad and he produced this illustration. (PS I know the car looks irresistible, but I have to emphasize that it’s not really available!)



For another attempt to make maths more interesting I wrote a piece about the adventures of Sir Cumference (an old joke I know). Here’s sir Cumference marching on the city of Ius and about to raid Ius…



To explore coordinates a mother entered a teenager’s bedroom…



Getting back to Sir Cumference, having ensured in his bid to rid the kingdom of references to circles, King Arthur declares that all the pies in the area should be squared (and so the pies are squared). They come in different sizes but King Arthur (with a sceptical Merlin looking on) believes that Sir Cumference is equal to pie D.

We also worked on a 'History of Numbers'. Part of the story is set in Babylon...



Where there could be a problem with numbers as they hadn't invented zero...



The Mayans (who did invent zero) had a different problem. They insisted on having a year of exactly 360 days... the extra days were 'unlucky days'.




Gnn, I was hoping to show you a few more on other subjects but for some reason they won't load. Anyhow I hope you enjoy the drawings I've been able to include.

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The illustrations appear in 'Using Stories to teach maths Ages 9 -11' ISBN 978190986001 except the 'History of Numbers' illustrations which are included in 'Using Stories to teach maths Ages 9 - 11 ISBN 9781909860018 (www.hopscotchbooks.com)

The collection of stories relating to last month's illustrations Hugh McPearson Ten of Spades Detective The Inconsequential Investigations Collection Volume One is now available! Kindle ASIN: BOCHBKJ475

Paperback ISBN: 979-8860393295 Hardback 979-8860663824






4 comments:

Adelaide Dupont said...

And here I was thinking the last two images were about the Roman Empire.

Roman numerals used to confuse me with place value.

And the Mayans had quite a number system!

Adelaide Dupont said...

The Mayan unlucky days had me think of THE IDES OF MARCH...

Susan Price said...

You and your dad should have published those books!

Penny Dolan said...

I can identify with the suffering parent in the 'coordinates' drawing, even though my workroom often suffers the same problem.

What a lot of thought and fun behind those drawings!