Adapted from NZ Maths unit Money Matters
Adaptions for ESOL students: Pat Boyle
| Year: 5-7 Level: 3 |
Duration: 1 week |
| Achievement objectives Number, Level 3
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Learning outcomes Students will be able to:
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| Language learning focus Focus on building vocabulary and mathematical literacy Students will:
How to achieve the language learning outcomes:
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In this unit, students will explore Number concepts through the real world Measurement context of Money. A variety of money contexts will be explored using paper play money, at first trading only $1, $10, and $100 notes, and eventually extending the trades and operations into using thousands, millions and billions of dollars.
Students will be involved in making fair trades and exchanges of their money in order to have practical experiences with the essential "rules" of our place value system. Namely, that any ten of one denomination is equal to one of the next higher order (that is, 10 ones = 1 ten, 10 tens = 1 hundred, 10 hundreds = 1 thousand and so on). The money context, with real world problems, will be used to enable students to make sense of, and to "unlock", the keys to the language, patterns and rules of our place value system. By exploring large numbers through the concrete material of play money, students will gain confidence decoding and reading multi-digit numbers involving, ones, tens, hundreds and eventually, thousands, millions, billions, trillions etc.
In this unit students will explore the meaning of digits in whole numbers as well as developing deeper understandings about our place value system within the context of money problems.
The focus of the Number learning will be on developing better understandings about the fundamentals of our place value system, namely that:
These concepts will be developed as learners participate in many trades involving play money. They will use the play money in conjunction with place value house mats upon which they will place the money. It is important to note that students will use play money that only involves powers of ten - $1, $10, $100, $1000, $10000 (no $2, $5, $20, $50 notes will be used in this series of lessons). Learners will develop their ability to read amounts of money in story problems and flyers. Most tasks will emphasise the use of flexible mental thinking strategies rather than recording answers on paper. Grouping, rounding and using compatible number combinations will be encouraged through the emphasis on the numbers that "go together" to make 10, make 100, make 1 000.
As students develop further confidence with making equitable trades involving ones, tens and hundreds, they will be encouraged to solve problems where they need to estimate, round off and carry out addition and subtraction to solve money tasks. The emphasis is on students using their knowledge of groupings of tens to help them round off and estimate amounts that are more than / less than $10, $100, $1 000.
Some links from the Figure It Out series which you may find useful are:
The following books contain activities to help students investigate and evaluate financial decisions. Some of these involve operating with number.
Published on: 09 Jan 2018
