Counting Chips: A Lesson in Base 5

In the lesson Talk the Talk, we learned to count chips like the ones shown here.

In the table, we see that there are:
4 blues, 2 reds, 4 whites.
We write this as: 424

Blues	Reds	Whites

Be sure to do the lesson Talk the Talk and learn chip language before you count chips in this lesson.

There are some rules about the chips that we need to know.

We count chips using base five.
The only numerals we can use are 0,1,2,3,4.
The value of the chip is determined by the color.

Blues	Reds	Whites

421

Base Five

Blues 5 x 5	Reds 5 x 1	Whites 1

142

Base five uses 5 numerals, 0,1,2,3,4
The place determines the value.
Each place is 5 times the value of the place on the right.

Base Ten

Hundreds 10 x 10	Tens 10 x 1	Ones 1
3	7	6
376

Base ten uses 10 numerals, 0,1,2,3,4, 5,6,7,8,9.
The place determines the value.
Each place is 10 times the value of the place on the right.

Counting in base five is very
much like counting in base ten.

You are a big kid. You’ve been counting in base ten since you were about two years old.

SO . . .

Are you ready to learn to count in base 5?

Remember that we are counting in base five.

Look at the numerals. What comes next?

Click the OK button to see if you are thinking
of the correct numeral.

That was easy, wasn't it!

This time you type in the next numeral. Click OK when you are finished.

12, 13, 14
20,

Now you’ve got it!

Count further this time.

23,

24,

30,

Remember to count in base five.

You can do the easy ones.

Can you do the tricky ones?

Remember that we are counting in base five.

30	31		33
	41	42	43

Click the correct number.

So, you can do the tricky ones too!

Keep Counting!

34,	40,	41,
,	,

Keep counting.

There are no 5s in base five. After 44 comes 100.

42,	43,
,

Fill in the counting chart.
Click on each box and type the numeral.
Click OK when you are finished with the whole chart.

0	1
10		12

30	31
			44

Now that you can count using base 5, you can teach your friends to count in other bases too. Try counting in base 8 using 0,1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7.

Counting in Base 5 is Easy!

Did you know that computers count in base two?

Computers count in base 2!

You can count in base two also. Use only 0s and 1s.