Number of the Day Years K - 8

Summary Each day a new number; each day the same challenge. Use the calculator and the Poly Plug to help you write as many equations as possible about this number. Suitable for threading. Materials One calculator and one Poly Plug per child

Procedure On the board or easel, sketch a picture of a calculator with the screen section obvious. Tell the children the special number chosen for this day and write it in the screen. Today our special number is 10. I want you to find a way of showing 10 on the screen. You have to remember what buttons you pressed, because I am going to write some of your ways up here next to this calculator picture. Some calculators correctly evaluate entries using the order of operations; some do not. Therefore teachers using machines without this facility always have to be watchful that children's equations may need brackets. This sometimes leads to trying to explain sophistications beyond the year levels where this task could be used. Some suggestions a teacher recorded in a Prep/Year 1 class are shown above.

Content decimal calculations exploring large numbers operations - whole number order of operations pattern generalisation pattern recognition recording - calculator recording - written visual and kinaesthetic representation of number

Clearly one student is thinking well beyond the usual expectations of that level. Could this sort of divergent thinking influence others in the class?

Well these are wonderful number stories you have discovered with your calculators. Now I wonder if you could use your plugs to show me how to make these stories. Let's try one together first.

These examples are from the same Prep/1 class:

My story was 9 + 1 = 10. See, 9 then 1 more and it makes the 10 on the screen.

Mine shows 9 + 1 = 10 too.

Children in any year level can explore a new number each day and there is no need to keep to the usual number range expected for the age group. Why not make 37 or 59 the number of the day in the youngest class? It soon comes to be an expected part of the maths lesson that children will explore, discuss, record and make a number each day.

Examples of Stewart's and Steven's work from the CAN project are shown below. The text accompanying these pictures in the report tells us both:

... were aged seven and both were regarded as 'slow learners'. They were making 19. Steve was much more confident than Stewart, but eventually the numbers grew beyond his control. (p.13)

Stewart's Work

Steve's Work

The report continues:

It is very common for children working in CAN to make patterns such as these, and many children seem to be fascinated by number patterns. The calculator makes it easy for a pattern to be extended as far as the child wishes, so that the regularity of the pattern can be observed and the next number predicted. However, children often do not use the calculator when they are generating a pattern; indeed, the mistakes in the second half of Steve's work suggest that he did not even verify his pattern on the calculator. Steve and Stewart's patterns were rather short in length. Some schools found it a problem that children continued the same pattern for many pages. The teachers tried to persuade children that, once the pattern had been established and verified, there was no point in going on with the same pattern for ever. (Page 13)

Extensions

1. Let the number of the day be a decimal such as 3·75
2. Restrict the operations used. For example 'you must use two operations', or 'you must include a multiplication'.
3. Complement the activity by using Red Board of the Day.

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