by Tony Vincent
learninginhand@mac.com

Grade Level: 4-8

Content Area: Math

• Students will learn the values of Roman numerals.
• Students will explain patterns in Roman numerals.
• Students will compare and contrast Roman numerals with Arabic numbers.
• Students will learn about the history and modern uses of Roman numerals.

Procedures

1. Beam Numerus to each participating student.This activity requires minimal teacher instruction so the teacher can work with other groups of students.
2. Pair students and pass out the worksheet "Exploring Roman Numerals."
3. Numerus is an easy-to-understand application. Most students shouldn't need direct instruction in its use. Give students time to work in pairs to complete "Exploring Roman Numerals."
4. Have a group discussion about using Roman numerals. Ask questions like, "How would you like math if we still used Roman numerals instead of Arabic numbers?"
5. To learn the history of Roman numerals, beam the eBook (Palm Reader format) "Roman Numerals" to students.
6. As an extension, have students retell the history and uses of Roman numerals by creating a concept web in Idea Pad.

Notes
The developer of Numerus has written a few comments for this lesson:

1. In the NumerusAnswers.pdf file, it says that both Roman numerals and Arabic numerals can be put in a calculator. Numerus "cheats" with that assumption: Numerus remembers all numbers with internal numeric variables, all calculations are made with standard numbers, then converted to Roman numerals for displaying purposes only!
2. To be very precise, you should add to the RomanNumerals.pdb eBook file that the Romans have never been very strict in the use of their numerals and that rules evolved over the centuries. For example, 4 could often be IIII (especially in the early Roman ages) rather than IV.
3. The notation you chose for 5,000 and largernumbers is one among many. This is the part of their numbering which has never been standardized. As you could see, I chose the "number.M" notation which is one of the common ways of presenting these numbers in Numerus, because it was by far the easiest one to display on a computer screen. But I think to most common one was by putting a horizontal line over the numbers, not under.