Hello, everybody.
Hello, mister Shakespeare.
How are you today?
I'm a bit worried.
I'm the most important writer ever
and I have a problem with one of my plays.
Really?
Why is that?
Because I want to have a lot of characters in it.
There are soldiers, they start a war.
They die.
And I can't do the maths with it.
I get lost.
I see. I think we can help you.
Really? Who?
Me! Me and the children at home!
Do you want to help William?
The most characters I have ever written in a play is 19
in my favourite play.
A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Wow, that's a lot.
And, how many characters do you want to have in your new play?
Maybe a hundred.
A hundred?
So it is 81 more.
How is that?
You want to have a hundred characters.
If you already have 19,
how can you find the difference?
That's right.
You can subtract.
Oh, I already knew it!
Really?
So, one hundred minus nineteen equals eighty one.
What if I want to have 200 characters instead?
Two hundred?
That's really a lot.
Yes. They are the soldiers.
In my play there are two kings fighting each other
for the throne of England.
There are a hundred soldiers on each side.
Okay.
So you already have one hundred characters
and you want to have one hundred more.
How can you calculate the total?
That's correct, you can add.
Of course, that's what I said.
Did you?
I didn't hear anything.
Anyway.
I see you are good at maths, but are you good enough?
I have a more difficult problem.
What is it, William?
I want to have groups of soldiers.
So each group has a captain.
If there are five captains in the play,
how many soldiers are there in each group?
Okay.
So you need to distribute the soldiers among the captains.
So how would you calculate the number of soldiers
that goes with each captain?
That's right, you can divide.
Of course. That's just what I was thinking right now.
Were you?
I believe you.
So, anyway.
So each captain has 20 soldiers.
I think you are really good at maths.
But not as good as I am as a writer.
Of course, William.
Is there anything else we can do for you?
Just one last thing.
If each soldier carries two flags, how many flags do I need?
So, how can you calculate this?
That's correct. You can multiply.
That means we need 400 flags for the soldiers.
So today we have seen how to add,
subtract, multiply and divide.
We helped Shakespeare with his maths problems.
And we helped him write the play.
Yes, I created a wonderful new play with all my intelligence
and great capacity to calculate the number of soldiers
and captains.
Of course.
Thanks for your help, everybody.
See you soon. Bye.