Growth Point 5

Materials: 4 or 5 different coloured dice, counters, place value chart, timer

Activity: Students nominate which coloured dice represents each place value (e.g. red = ones, blue = tens, yellow = hundreds). Set the time for 60 seconds and in that time students roll all of the dice at once. For each number they roll, they must collect that quantity of counters and place them in the corresponding place value column on the chart. At the end of the time, students look at their chart and decide if any trades need to be made. For example, if there are more than 10 counters in the tens column, they may remove those and place one in the hundreds in its place. Students must then represent their final number using words and numbers.

Related key ideas: Quantity, base-10 system, place-value partitioning, number triad.

Materials: Four dice (one red, three blue).

Activity: Students will simulate a group of students participating in a school lap-a-thon, with the dice rolls being used to determine the distance (in metres) walked by each student. Roll the red dice, this digit will represent the ‘thousands’ number. Roll the other three dice and use these in any order to represent the hundreds, tens and ones digits. Each roll of the four dice will be used to determine another student’s total distance walked. Once six (or more) distances have been calculated, these should be ordered to determine the student who walked the furthest through to the student who walked the least distance. Ask questions such as ‘How long is one lap? Which student got closest to it? What would half a lap be?’.

Related key ideas: Quantity, comparison.

Variation: Lap-a-thon could be measured in centimetres or millimetres. If students raised 10 cents for each metre walked, how much money was raised by each student? In total?

Materials: Paper aeroplane, measuring tape.

Activity: As a prior activity, students make a paper aeroplane (individually or in pairs). They then take turns to fly these from a specified starting point and measure the distance travelled in millimetres. The distances can then be ordered from lowest to highest. Consider questions such as ‘Which plane is closest to the metre?’ Or to the half metre?’.

Related key ideas: Quantity, comparison.

Materials: Measuring tape.

Activity: Measure the height of each student in millimetres, and then order these heights. The heights can then be ordered from lowest to highest.

Related key ideas: Quantity, comparison.

Materials: Part of newspaper or webpage which gives house auction results.

Activity: Students select a number of suburbs from the results page of the paper and record the prices that houses sold for. (Their own area may or may not be appropriate.) These prices can then be ordered from highest to lowest.

Which properties got closest to $XXX, XXX? (use average benchmark for the area chosen).

Related key ideas: Quantity, comparison.

Materials: None

Activity: Each student records four five-digit numbers on a piece of paper. Played like bingo, the teacher gives clues to enable students to cross off their numbers. Clues such as the following will all assess the students’ understanding of place value:

• an even number

• a number with 7 hundreds

• a number greater than 80 000

Related key ideas: Digit position, place-value partitioning, quantity

Variation: A student plays the role of caller in the larger or a smaller group.

Materials: Parents’ mobile phone number list, or random phone numbers.

Activity: Teacher models with school telephone number. Ask, ‘What is the highest number that can be made using these eight digits?’, ‘How do we say it?’, ‘What is the lowest number?’ Approximate the middle between the highest and lowest numbers. Ask, ‘Can you make any numbers that are near to this midpoint?’ Students record their own telephone number on paper. They then answer the same questions using their own number.

Related key ideas: Digit position, place-value partitioning, quantity, comparison.