A False Alarm

The bell ringing baboon.

       Some years ago, a soldier doing duty at the castle of Cape Town, kept a tame baboon for his amusement. One evening it broke its chains unknown to him. In the night, climbing up into the belfry, it began to play with, and ring the bell. Immediately the whole place was in an uproar; some great danger was apprehended. Many thought that the castle was on fire; others, that an enemy had entered the bay, and the soldiers began actually to turn out, when it was discovered that the baboon had occasioned the disturbance. On the following morning a court-martial was held, when Cape justice dictated, that whereas the baboon had unnecessarily put the castle into alarm, the master should receive fifty lashes; the soldier, however, found means to evade the punishment.

Baboon: 5 Fast Facts

The largest baboon, known as a
Mandrill is nearly the height of
a man when erect.

       Baboon, a common name applied to a division of Old-World apes and monkeys.

Five Fast Facts About Baboons:

1. They have long, abrupt muzzles like a dog, strong tusks or canine teeth, usually short tails, flabby cheek-pouches and small, deep eyes, with large eyebrows. 
2. Their hind and fore feet are well proportioned, so that they run easily on all fours, but they do not maintain themselves in an upright posture with facility. 
3. They are generally of the size of a moderately large dog, but the largest, the mandrill, is, when erect, nearly the height of a man. 
4. They are almost all confined to Africa and are ugly, sullen, fierce and gregarious, defending themselves by throwing stones or dirt. 
5. Baboons live on fruits and roots, eggs and insects.

3 More Types of Baboons:

• The cliacma or pig-tailed baboon, is found in considerable numbers in parts of the South African colonies, where the inhabitants wage war against them on account of the ravages they commit in the fields and gardens. 
• The common baboon, of a brownish yellow color, inhabits a large part of Africa farther to the north. 
• The hamadryad of Abyssinia is characterized by long hair, forming a sort of shoulder cape. 

See the new Hamadryas Baboon

 Troop at the San Diego Zoo.

How to arrange objects according to size?

Animal stacking blocks for
 developing seriation skills.

       Arranging objects or pictures according to size is important for cognitive development. This process is referred to as seriation skill in the early learning classroom environment. There are a number of advantages for learners who excel at this skill:

• Students are better prepared for learning mathematics such as: the order of numbers, fractions, addition and subtraction.
• Processes in logical thinking become developed, such as: predicting outcomes, understanding relationships between objects, and making assumptions that can be analyzed.

       Toy companies have been making products for babies for years that encourage even infants to practice seriation skill sets. I've included photos here of an animal box set that I keep among the toys in my home.

• Basic Math Skills in Child Care: Creating Patterns and Arranging Objects in Order
• Making the Most of Math in Early Childhood by the University of Nevada (PDF)
• Teaching Preschool Math - Learn All About It!

My alphabet, animal stacking blocks are stacked according to size.

These elephants with big tusks and long trunks were fun for little ones to arrange from large, to larger, to largest etc...

         Above and below are black and white prints of elephants and rhinos of varying size that I printed, cut and laminated for my classroom several years of ago and these are still in great condition. The laminated surfaces allowed me to wipe them off with a cleanser of some sort before using them over again during many different class periods. Pre-k teachers can make multiple sets of images such as these for youngsters to line up in order of size with only a bit of pocket change.

Students practiced arranging rhinos according to size in my classroom several years ago.

       Below are wild animal clip art samples that visitors may use to make their own personal sets like the projects shown above. Pull the clip art into a Word Document and shrink or enlarge the beasts in order to have prints like the ones you see in my examples. I managed to print six different sizes using standard 8 1/2 x 11 inch typing paper. Start with the largest size and then scale the images down by dragging the corners of each image down to a slightly smaller version of the same image.

A tufted ape clip art image.

A giant sea turtle clip art image.

A striped zebra clip art image.

       "A preschool student stacks cups to organize them by size. View more at earlymath.erikson.edu
       Focus on the Child videos are taken from one-on-one interviews with individual children. The interviews are designed to elicit evidence of children's mathematical thinking. They are not teaching episodes or formal assessments."