Charts for school
These are the sheets a pupil needs within arm's reach rather than in a bag — the things looked up mid-problem, when going to find the textbook means losing the thread of the problem itself.
Arithmetic first: the times table and the hundred chart. Then notation — Roman numerals, the Greek alphabet as science actually uses it, and the SI prefixes. And two subject sheets: the basic physics formulas with every symbol and unit named, and the solar system with size, distance, year and day set out together.
Above a desk at home, or on a classroom wall. They print on ordinary A4 and A3 — meant to be replaced when they get scruffy, not framed.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
eight planets · size, distance, year and day
LOGIC GATES
Seven digital-logic symbols — and how to build six of them from a single element, NAND
GREEK ALPHABET
24 letters · names and where science uses them
IRREGULAR VERBS
the 100 you meet most: base · past · past participle — grouped by the four patterns, not shuffled alphabetically
LETTER TEAMS
40 letter combinations and the sounds they spell, in IPA, with one example word each
DIVISIBILITY TESTS
what to read in a written number instead of dividing it: the tail, the digit sum and composite divisors
NUMBERS 1 TO 100
the hundred chart · primes picked out in colour
MULTIPLICATION TABLE
1 to 12 · colour intensity = size of the product
PASCAL’S TRIANGLE
the first thirteen rows, the sum of each row and the pattern of the odd numbers
REPEATING DECIMALS
which fractions stop, which run for ever, and how to know the length of the repeat without dividing
ROMAN NUMERALS
seven symbols · ones, tens, hundreds · years
CURWEN HAND SIGNS
one hand for each degree of the scale, with the mental effect John Curwen gave it
THE SOPRANO RECORDER
all 27 notes from C5 to D7 in the Baroque and German systems — and how to tell which one you hold
THE VERTICAL PLANET
from the Challenger Deep to the summit of Everest · one scale, nothing compressed
MAMMALS IN TIME
from the first synapsid to us · 320 million years on one axis
VERTEBRATES IN TIME
when each group appeared · five hundred million years on one axis
GREEK LETTERS IN SCIENCE
10 capitals with a shape of their own, 14 twins of Latin letters, and what each one stands for
THE MOHS HARDNESS SCALE
ten reference minerals and five household probes: who scratches whom
THE PERIODIC TABLE
all 118 elements: symbol, atomic number and IUPAC atomic weight in every cell — blocks in colour, lanthanoids and actinoids offset below
BASIC PHYSICS FORMULAS
fifteen formulas · every letter explained beneath it
ROCK CLASSIFICATION
the three classes, 24 named rocks and the cycle that links them — after USGS and NPS
SPECTRAL LINES
five gases on one wavelength scale, from the violet edge to the red
ANIMALS
the main branches — from comb jellies to chordates · who is actually related to whom
THE TREE OF LIFE
who sits inside whom · where animals, fungi and plants actually are