Kiera Dean 14436084

The Numerate Educator 314506

Assessment 3, materials for mathematics
Materials for mathematics
Many materials can be used in creating a meaningful mathematics lesson to teach place
value. From my brainstorm, I have chosen two materials and created a maths activity that
helps to teach place value aimed at a year 3 class. Those materials are things you can
easily locate in the classroom which are coloured paper, scissors, sticky tape, pencils and
Multi-base Arithmetic Blocks (MABs), ones, tens hundreds and thousands.
Students are to
1. Fold an A4 piece of paper into 4 sections, folding along the long side.
2. Fold each of the four strips of paper so that they form 10 squares.
3. In each of the squares on the strips of paper, write numbers 0-9, starting with 0 in the
top square.
4. With another piece of A4 paper, measure the width of the strips and cut two slots for
each strip to weave through, which should reveal one number on the strips at a time
5. Weave strips through the slots and join the ends of each strip so that they form a
circle and can be pulled through the slots.
6. Label one of each of the strips ones, tens, hundreds and thousands (as displayed in
picture 3)
Once students have created their place value odometers, the teacher can then instruct
students to create numbers on them and represent the number in MAB blocks. For example,
if the teacher instructs students to create 1,323 with their odometers, they then have to
collect a one thousand cube MAB, three hundreds blocks, two tens blocks and three ones
blocks.
The Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) 2014 explain that
students at a year 3 level should have an understanding of place value as mentioned for
ACARAs description for ACMNA052 Recognise, model, represent and order numbers to at
least 10 000 (ACARA. 2014), also for ACMNA053, the description explains recognising that

10 000 equals 10 thousands, 100 hundreds, 1000 tens and 10 000 ones (ACARA. 2014)
and justifying choices about partitioning and regrouping numbers in terms of their
usefulness for particular calculations (ACARA. 2014).
This lesson caters to meet the Australian Curriculums expectations of developing year 3
students knowledge of place value into the 10,000s. The lesson can also be flexible as
teachers can alter the numbers students can go up to depending on their level of
understanding. For example, if a year 3 student was performing at a year 1 level, the

Kiera Dean 14436084

The Numerate Educator 314506
Assessment 3, materials for mathematics
odometer they create may only go into the hundreds. Also, if a year 3 student was
performing at a well above year 3 standard, this activity can be altered to cater for their level
of understanding and promotes extend ending their knowledge of place value.
References

Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (2014). Retrieved from
http://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/mathematics/curriculum/f-10?layout=1

Google Images. (2014). Retrieved from

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/qGqOsQw85lI/UH0f5XIGgI/AAAAAAAAD40/eTlf_E3vKIE/s1600/MA
B.JPG