This week in maths, we looked at counting large groups of things, and the best way we can do that. We started off with a workshop on Tuesday with the problem –
Mr Wonka has asked the Oompa Loompas to organise and count the lollypops to get them ready for shipping to the candy stores. Can you be an oompa loompa for the day and get them ready for Mr Wonka? How many lollypops do you have?
Students were given a bucket full of popsicle sticks and asked to sort and count the objects. Jen and Kerri were working with them, asking them lots of questions on how they completed the task.
Then today, working in small groups with Jen and Kerri, the grade ones were shown some new concepts around counting large groups of objects. They encouraged them to organise their objects so they could count efficiently. Organising them into neat groups of 2’s, 5’s or 10’s allowed them to skip count to find their answer. It also ensures that each object is only counted once.
Another group took the idea of counting even further and focussed on place value and understanding the idea of 10 ones equals 1 ten and moving their objects from one column to the next.
Here is a video of Edie showing us how she is playing a game that involves rolling a dice and adding that amount of sticks. Once you hit 10 in the units column, you need to move it over to the tens column.
Next week, the students will continue to build on the information we have given them and will become experts at counting large groups of objects!