|
One is a snail, ten is a
crab
After
sharing the delightful picture story book One is a
Snail, Ten is a Crab with the children in her
combined nursery and reception class (4-5 year
olds), the teacher suggested that the children
choose their own number and work out which
combination of creatures’ legs would total their
chosen number.
 Tyrees
burst out ‘I know why 10 is a crab, because it’s got
10 legs – see, 1, 2, 3, … 10.’ Then added, ‘I know,
9 could be an octopus and a snail.’ He explained he
was going to work out which ‘800’ and reaching for
some paper wrote ‘800’, after a while explaining
that he had 4 crabs and 4 snails ‘that’s 10, 20, 30,
40 and 4 more – 44! That’s not the 800 – I need
loads more so I think I’ll do more crabs ‘cos
they’ve got most legs.’
He
continued to draw ‘There, I done 6 more crabs.
That’s 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 40 – there’s 100
and 4 more snails – that’s 104.’ Pausing, Tyree
decided ‘I don’t think I’m going to do any more
because it’s too big. I need 6 more so I can do 6
snails, or a dog and 2 snails, or 3 people – but I’m
just going to do a fly because that has 6 legs.’
Calculations: children’s own written methods:
counting continuously, separating sets, counting
with larger quantities
Their
teacher described this as a real ‘eye opener’: this
was the first time she had tried to support
children’s use of their own graphics to support
their mathematical thinking. She regarded the
children’s self-challenges and their individual
problem solving as remarkable.
Link to Gallery 6:
Calculations |
