It is best if the following activities are carried out by a group of 6 - 10 students who are at a similar stage of mathematical thinking in terms of their addition/subtraction strategies and fluency reading 1-digit, 2-digit, and 3-digit whole numbers.
Adaptation for ESOL students: Consider smaller groupings for ESOL students, (4 - 6),and group those ESOL students with stronger English skills with ESOL students whose English language is not so strong. Evidence suggests that students from a shared background may be more likely to assist each other.
Hand out play money to a group of students and have them play "The Great Money Sort!" where they are asked to sort random piles of play money into logical piles. For the first day, students will be involved in exploring number patterns and relationships that they see in the play money, making amounts with the money by grouping it into ones, tens, hundreds and so on.
As students take the mess of play money and begin to sort the money into piles, have them discuss patterns that they observe as they look at the numbers in the play money.
Adaptation for ESOL students: Tell students to think through their ideas in their first language, and then check to see if they can express these ideas in English. Model the English yourself, verbally labelling the resources, actions and desired results.
Have students sort as much of the play money as possible (that is, using thousands, millions, billions...). Have them discuss how they are choosing to organise the money into piles, and why.
Possible questions/prompts as students are sorting the money into piles:
Eventually, all of the money should get sorted into piles that go from:
Encourage students to offer suggestions about patterns that they see in the numbers and to describe the same pattern in as many different ways as they possibly can such as:
Students can record their patterns on paper to share with each other during the discussion.
Adaptation for ESOL students: Ask that the patterns are described in words. You may need to model this first. Consider creating a 'useful words' list, possibly a wall chart, (this will grow as the lessons progress) in a prominent place, ask students to use these words in their writing about the patterns. The words to include so far might be zeros, repeating, thousands, hundreds, millions, patterns, groups.
Write the sentence patterns on a wall chart as well.
Once students have communicated their patterns with the group, turn their attention back to the piles of money. Ask questions that will help students focus on the pattern that can be described as grouping by tens (for example, that 10 ones makes 1 ten, that 10 tens makes 1 hundred). This can also be discussed and recorded as powers of ten (100 = 10 x 10 = 102; 1000 = 10 x 10 x10 = 103).
At this stage, some revision of forward and backward counting may be required. In particular, students will often struggle when counting on the last ten/hundred/thousand in any group. You may need to use number lines and/or hundred charts to revise counting forward and backward in ones, tens, hundreds, etc. before you continue. For example:
Adaptation for ESOL students: It may be useful to have the class 'recite' (aloud) numbers and sequences as they are pointed out on the board. This ensures all students practise saying the words in a safe, non-threatening environment. (N.B. It would not be safe to ask an ESOL student to stutter through an embarrassingly poor recitation alone.)
Where students struggle, have them actually count out the money in tens, hundreds or thousands saying the numbers aloud as they add on more money. Once students have had experience with counting on in tens ($30, $40, $50...), hundreds ($600, $700, $800...), thousands ($2 000, $3,000... $4,000...) stop the students at key times and have them predict how many notes of one denomination will be required to make the next amount required without counting on to find out. For example:
Adaptation for ESOL students: It may be wise to question ESOL students one-to-one, or in smaller, like groups for this task. The questioning and encouragement to speak about maths is a very valuable technique - so long as it is in a safe environment.
If the rest of the class is not generally accepting of the difficulties faced by ESOL students we do not place them in a position of potential ridicule. The belief that students will 'harden up' and need to 'get used to it' is unfounded. Move slowly on your public speaking expectations.
Published on: 09 Jan 2018
