Free Play Years K - 6

Summary The colour, texture and 'poppiness' of Poly Plug are so inviting that children just want to start fiddling with them. It's a good idea, at any year level, to encourage this time early in the program, even if the children have used Poly Plug in a previous class. There is never any problem with children thinking of something to do with the resource, but what will you do with what they do with their Poly Plug? Similarly, since calculators are used freely in Calculating Changes, it makes sense to at least become aware of what children, at any year level, can already do with them and be prepared to build on their responses. Materials One Poly Plug per person Recording paper and markers Poly Plug Paper could be useful One calculator per person

Procedure Simply ask the children to show you what they can do with their Poly Plug and expect to find questions you can ask based on the results. Perhaps record some ideas on the whiteboard to discuss and celebrate, but keep it informal unless children want to make posters, or in some other way, show what they can do. The procedure is essentially observe, facilitate, record, share and consider everything the children offer as a bouncing off point into maths. One of the things that always happens in this session is some children decide to pop out all the plugs. This is a good time to mention that the bag is part of the equipment and everything not being used should be put in the bag so it can be found when needed. Packing up is a breeze. There is a gap or space (not a hole*) for every plug, so when the child thinks the set is packed up they hold up the bag and show both sides. There should be no gaps. It doesn't matter how the plugs go back as long as red ones are in the red board. *Note: Not 'hole' because we don't want any language interference when Poly Plug is used to explore fractions and a 'whole' is involved.

Content Content will vary widely in this activity and the direction you go will depend on the children's previous experience in maths. The content areas generally involved in children's responses are: numbers and counting pattern whole number operations and equations games fractions graphing

To help you 'think on your feet' when looking for questions based on the children's play, consider the photos and comments below. Remember too that Poly Plug can be seen as: a collection of counters of different colours and thicknesses two frames that can be made into arrays of various sizes a playing board with counters an abacus with counters a graphing grid with markers and more...

Look for opportunities to encourage using a calculator to record, explain or extend discoveries. Also consider challenges such as: Show me what you can do with Poly Plug and one dice. Show me what you can do with Poly Plug and a number chart. Show me what you can do with Poly Plug and a pack of cards. Make up a story and use Poly Plug with anything else you like to act it out.

The following photos are from a Year 3 class 'free playing' with Poly Plug. Exactly the same creations could occur at any year level. The questions/challenges suggested represent what might be asked depending on the year level you are working with. They are not necessarily the questions asked by the teacher of this class.

Possible Questions/Challenges Can you tell someone else how to make this amazing pattern? Can you tell them how to make it a different way? Find three different ways to count the blue plugs. Show your ways on the calculator. How many yellow plugs are there? Can you check that another way?

Possible Questions/Challenges How many plugs in each row? Count by fives for me. How many plugs altogether? Teach your calculator to count by fives. Does it get the same answer? Suppose you both made a board like this. How many plugs would there be altogether? Suppose everyone in the room made a board like yours. How many plugs would there be altogether? How many blue plugs would there be in the room? How many yellow ones? Can you check your answer another way? Suppose the board is worth $1. How much is one row of plugs worth? How much are the yellow plugs worth? How much are the blue plugs worth? Do you notice that the rows are all equal. Tell me how many equal parts are made by the rows. Tell me the fraction name for one row of the Poly Plug board. What fraction of your Poly Plug board is blue? ... yellow? Write me an equation about two fifths and three fifths. If four people made boards exactly like yours and put them together, what percentage of the plugs would be blue? ... yellow?

Possible Questions/Challenges How many plugs to make your smiley face? Can you check that another way? How many gaps are in your board? Can you check that another way? Suppose the four people on your table made a board just like yours. How many plugs would be used to make the four smiley faces? Use the calculator to find out the number of plugs to make four smiley boards. Make me a table that shows the number of boards and the total number of plugs in that many smiley faces. Graph your table. If I tell you there are 112 plugs, can you tell me how many smiley face boards there are?

Possible Questions/Challenges Now it's your turn teachers. Test yourself. See if you could respond with at least five questions/challenges relevant to this child's creation. This is a great professional development exercise, especially if you are working with teachers at different levels. First they explore and extend the questions sets above. Then teachers develop a set for children at their level based on this photo. Sharing the results paints an impressive picture of how useful Poly Plug can be across the school.

Calculator Free Play

When given free play time, young children have been know to use a calculator to show:

• their age
• their house number, postcode, telephone number
• the date
• the time
• sequences like a rocket ship countdown
• other patterns of various sorts
• ...

In later years the challenge to:

• Show me what you can do with your calculator.

Return to Calculating Changes Activities