Imagine you arrive in Baghdad about 1,200 years ago. The city sits on the Tigris River. Caravans and boats bring goods and people. Today Baghdad is the capital of Iraq.
The House of Wisdom
You walk to the House of Wisdom. It is full of books. Scholars read and write there. A scholar is a person who studies a lot.
GreecebooksPersiabooksIndiabooks
Books from far away
Some scholars hold books from Greece, Persia and India. They translate them into Arabic. Translate means to change words into another language. Now many more people can learn from them.
Animal skin: costlyPaper: cheaper
Paper helps
The new books are written on paper. Paper came from China along trade roads. It cost less than animal skin. So books were faster to make.
Real photo
Meeting Al-Khwarizmi
In one room, a scholar named Al-Khwarizmi writes about numbers. The word algebra comes from his book. Algebra helps us find numbers we do not know. The word algorithm comes from his name.
1Wet
2Soap
3Rinse
4Dry
Numbers and steps
Our numbers 0 to 9 began in India. Al-Khwarizmi wrote about them, and they spread. An algorithm is steps to solve a problem. Washing hands has steps: wet, soap, rinse, dry.
For parents
Goal: Your child learns about Baghdad's House of Wisdom, translating books, and Al-Khwarizmi.
Ask: what does translate mean? Do you know a word in another language?
Turn a daily task into an algorithm by saying each step in order.
Away from the screen: Find Iraq and the Tigris River on a globe. Then write the steps for making a sandwich and follow them exactly.
Real photo