Counting the Rice

Activity appropriate for grades 2nd to 8th.

Help students discover place value with hands-on activities and role playing. Adapt this activity for middle
school students by using different number bases.

You will need the following supplies:

1. About 200 small objects such as pebbles, marbles, or candy

2. Blackboard and chalk or paper and pencil
3. Class of students or a parent and several children

TIP: if desired, read the story after doing the activities to stimulate problem-solving and reasoning skills.

The Story

"Long time ago, probably more that that six thousand years before there was a written numerical system,
somewhere in Mesopotamia or Egypt, there was a king who ruled a land that was rich and fertile and produced
plentiful rice. The people of the land had to pay taxes to the king in the form of sacks filled with rice. Once a
month, exactly on the day of full moon, people from all over the kingdom would arrive very early to the King's
castle with lots of rice sacks. They would stand in line and each of them delivered their sacks onto a big pile.
The king, being so egotistic and self-centered, wanted to have an accurate count of the number of rice sacks that
he collected, so he pushed his priests to come up with a method to count and record the number of sacks
collected on those special days.

"They had three (or more) people standing next to the king. Each of them represented one of the place value
digits or columns and had ten finger to count. As the farmers started bringing the sacks of rice, the first person
next to the king started adding the sacks with his fingers until he ran out of fingers. At that point, once he
reached ten, the next person over started counting how many times the first person ran out of fingers (so to
speak). On a good day (lots of rice being brought to the king) the second person would also run out of fingers
and that is when the third person would start counting (with his fingers), how many times the second person ran
out of fingers. And on and on for the whole day. It must have been very boring and tiring for the third and
fourth persons doing the counting; standing there all day with one or two fingers raised. At the end of the day,
when all the rice sacks had been collected, they would capture the finger count into special symbols, one for
each counting person and a different symbol depending on how many fingers the person had raised. This
became the written base ten numerical system."1

The Activities

Have student(s) try some of these activities:

1. Brainstorm and come up with reasons why there is a decimal system that is made up of ten symbols
using 0 to 9. Spend 3-5 minutes writing down ideas.
2. Tell student(s) that they will count objects, but they have to use their fingers to count. Give them more
objects than they have fingers. Then have them begin counting. When they run out of fingers,
brainstorm to figure out how to count the rest of the objects.
3. Use small objects to represent the rice sacks. Choose a king and three counters, give the "sacks" to the
rest (the farmers), and start the play. The first time this activity is performed, only give one sack to each
farmer to make it simpler. The first time the number ten is counted and another counter has to be
 brought in, discuss the concept of zero and how the first person counting rice sacks doesn't have any
fingers raised. Continue counting beyond twenty.
4. Choose another king, three different counters, and re-distribute the rice sacks. Count again. Only this
time, give a random amount of sacks to each farmer (2-5) and count past one hundred.
5. Repeat as many times as is necessary until students are comfortable with the base ten system and place
value.
6. Count again and use a place value chart to show numbers that are counted.

Extra Activity -- Other Bases

Introduce other base systems.

Introduce the base five system but without even telling students that they'll be using a different base. Tell them
that they can each use only one hand or five fingers to do the counting.

1. Have them count sacks a few times and write down the answers.
2. Ask the students how many different symbols they are using (5). Once the students realize that they are
only using 0 to 4 (5 symbols), mention that this is a different base. It is not base ten, but base 5.
3. Have students count the same number of rice sacks using base ten and base five, so they can observe
how the two numbers equate to each other, for example, 25 (in base ten) equates to 100 (in base five).
4. Base eight may be introduced by having them use fingers, but not thumbs. Repeat the steps above only
using base eight.
5. For base two, use whole hands and no individual fingers. Have at least five counter people repeating the
steps using base two.
6. In conclusion, you may want to consider bases larger than ten. Try base sixteen. Don't re-enact the
counting, just describe the counting process on the board or a sheet of paper. Have students invent their
own symbols for the numbers above ten or use letters of the alphabet.
7. When finished with the activities, talk about counting in different base systems and place value.
1
Originally posted on http://arcytech.org/java/b10blocks/counting.html. See the original activity at
http://replay.waybackmachine.org. Accessed 9/20/10.