Tally sticks

Okay, so a long time ago, when people didn't have computers or even paper, they needed a way to keep track of important things like how much money they had, how much they owed someone, or how much food they had. So, they invented something called a tally stick.

A tally stick was a long piece of wood that had notches on it. The notches were like little lines that were carved into the wood. Each notch represented a certain amount of something, like maybe one notch was worth one loaf of bread, and another notch was worth one coin.

When people wanted to keep track of something, they would use a tally stick. They would make a mark on the stick for each thing they wanted to remember. For example, if you owed someone two loaves of bread, they would make two notches on your tally stick.

Then, when you paid them back, they would erase one of the notches to show that you had given them one loaf of bread, and they would leave the other notch there to show that you still owed them one.

People used tally sticks for a really long time until they invented things like paper and pencils. Nowadays, we don't really use tally sticks anymore, but they are still really cool to look at and learn about!