It's All About the Money

Last week my Year 8 groups and my Year 5 group were using play money. Money is good to use because it relates to real life. Everyone of my students has had experience at some point of handling money and buying or selling goods in exchange for money. 

My year 5's role played 'Shop Keepers'. They took turns being a shop keeper and had to sell an item to a customer. The problem for them in this challenge was working out how much change to give back i.e. if a drink cost $3.80 and they were given a $10 note, how much change do they give back? This involves using knowledge of place value, counting, addition, subtraction, parts of a whole (fractions) and decimals

My year 8's were first asked to count the pile of money put in front of them then they were asked to use money to solve addition and subtraction story problems involving money. 

Here are a couple of photos of one of my year 8 groups engaged in using their money to solve a problem.

My year 5 students (below) playing 'Shopkeepers'

Working towards Stage 7

Both year 8 groups (group 3 & 4) and my year 5 group (group 1) have been working on multiplicative strategies using arrays. Arrays are rows of objects that are used for the children to be able to see groups rather than single objects. The arrays we have been using are animal strips. Each group has started off using the strips to partition (break up) additively then they use multiplication and additive strategies to solve the answer. Using arrays also helps to correct children's misunderstanding of what multiplication looks like i.e. 6 x 3 is 6 groups of 3 whereas 3 x 6 is 3 groups of 6. Though they have the same answer, the arrays look different so using the materials helps clarify this in their minds : )

In the videos below you will see the students explaining their strategy. What the students are doing:

To solve 27 x 6, 

27 is split into 20 and 7 and these parts are multiplied then recombined, as in: 

20 x 6 = 120 

7 x 6 = 42 (or 7 x 5 = 35 and 7 x 1 = 7) 

120 + 42 = 162)

Group 1 (Mya, Heseti, Ripeka, Michael, Sacred)

Group 3 (Paul, Bethel, Teri, Faleupolu, Vera)




Group 4 (Andre, Giovanni, Losana)

Group 3 Learning to problem solve

Today group 3 was given the same mathematical problem as Group 4 were given previously. However, their problem was put into a different context. As you can see from the video the group were new to problem solving so they found it hard to talk to each other at first to try to solve the problem. As the video goes on you'll see they start to communicate and work together. This is only a small snippet of the work they did. They are sure to get better and better as they become more experienced with using mathematical talk and relying on each other within the group. Please check back regulaly to see how much they progress :)

Miss Breen

The problem: On a picnic at Totara Park there are three classes with eighteen students in each class. There are only allowed to be a maximum of 60 students swimming in the pool at one time. Will all three classes be able to swim together?
(we discussed what maximum means so that the problem was accessible to all the students)

Term 1 Groups Begin

I am so excited to have begun working with my wonderful students.

I have four groups - 2 x year 8s, 1 x year 2/3 and 1 x year 5's. Here are some of these awesome kids below.

Group 1

Mya, Michael, Ripeka, Sacred, Heseti

Group 2

Serenity, Shaza, Dorothy, Sisilina

Group 4

Giovanni, Losana, Andre

Group 3

Teri, Vera, Faleupolu, Paul, Bethel