| | It's hard to talk about the capture of Fort Ticonderoga from the British on May 10, 1775, without some mention of the cannon inventory of the fort. Today's artillery collection at the fort is impressive, but difficult to interpret without some instruction. When I studied at the fort for a week, last year, I was able to participate in the Guns at Night tour. Our guide gave us an extensive lesson about the cannons and mortars behind the walls. I knew I wanted to share some of that information with my fourth grade class. |
So when we learned about the capture of the fort by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold in 1775, we had to take a look at the markings on the cannons - including a math activity that gave everyone the chance to use their multiplication skills to decipher how much each cannon weighs.
There is a three-number code on the cannon. When you multiply the first number by 112, the second by 28, and the third by 1, then add the three products, the result is the weight of the cannon. All students should be able to do this by this point, making use of skills learned in our regular math lessons in the past couple of weeks.
