Poly Plug Values Years 2 - 4

Summary Give each plug colour a value and see what other numbers you can make. That's all there is to it, but one of the nice things about this activity is that children invented it. Read the story below and let the text and pictures paint a picture of the rich learning possibilities in this simple activity. Suitable for threading. Materials One Poly Plug per pair Recording paper and markers, or journals Acknowledgement This activity was contributed by Jacki Healey, Margate Primary School.

Procedure There was so much learning in Jacki's class, she just had to tell us about it. I was working with Place Value with my Grade 2 class and I wanted to do something to extend their understanding. I decided to use Poly Plugs. The first time I introduced the Poly Plugs I told them it would be interesting to use them to represent numbers. How could they do this? Initially I used low numbers, eg: 14, 17, etc. I discovered that given low numbers, most children would assign each Poly Plug a value of 1, ie: 1 to 1 correspondence. The challenge lay in giving them larger numbers to represent, eg: 96, 43, 85, 74. Large numbers and odd numbers were harder and required more ingenuity to represent. At the end of the first one hour session, some children had considered giving, for example, a red plug the value of 1, a yellow 2, a blue 5 or 10.

Content addition facts beyond 10 addition facts to 10 counting exploring large numbers group (or skip) counting mathematical conversation odd & even numbers place value problem solving recording - written visual and kinaesthetic representation of number writing numerals

Over the next 3 weeks I repeated the activity, giving each group the opportunity to swap partners and share ideas.

It was tremendously exciting to watch as the children's confidence and ingenuity increased each week.

First we count... ...then we write.   We counted by twos... ...all the way to 48, but what's this last one going to be???   Let me show you. I can count to 36!

They were also asked to record their ideas, so that they could share with the whole group. By the end of the month the children's ability to 'skip count' in 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s, 6s and 10s was amazing. Some children even assigned value to the empty places in the plug board. They also thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. One day I suggested that they had worked so hard they deserved a break. They could play on the brand new playground equipment, then come back to finish their Poly Plug Values. They unanimously refused and chose to complete the task first! Children's Records These transcriptions of children's work come complete with their inventive spelling. Elizabeth & Clara 84 - We uesed eight tens and four ones for 84. The Ones where red and the tens where yellw. 11 - We uesed one ten and one one and the ten was blue and yellw the ones where red 11. 9 - We uesed 0 tens and 9 ones the ones where red 9. Jake, Brad & Kit 84 - We are doowing eighty four. The blues are tens and the yellows are ones. 53 - Counting in 6 and 5 unites - blue is 6, yellow is units. 9 - Counting in 2 and 1 unite - yellow is 2, blue is units. 36 - Counting in 3 and 0 unites - blue is 3, yellow is units. Ray & Jame 36 - Cont in ten's yes the yellow for the one's. 53 - The bloue is the ten's the red is the one's. 9 - The bloue is the 2's the red is the one's. 61 - The red is the tens the yellow is the one's. Hannah, Esther & Samuel 36 - We counted in fives with the yellow ones and we uesed the bure ones as the uoonets 61 - We counted in ten's to 60 and We got a nother one and put it two spaces away from the resed and We used it as the unit. Sam & Coad For 15 we used 3 pollyplugs in 5's. for 43 we used 7 pollyplugs 4 were ten's and 3 were ones. For 26 we used 8 polly plugs 2 were tens and 6 were ones. For 82 we used 10 polly plugs 8 were Tens and 2 were ones. For 50 we used 5 polly plugs 5 were tens. For 37 we used 10 polly plugs 3 were tens and 7 were ones. Joel & Ben 15 - we counted in twos to ten then we used the red thigs and counted to 15. The filled in Spaces are the tens and the Spaces that wern't filled in were units.

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