Train Carriages

This is a rather useful activity for pupils as young as year 1/2 - more able. The activity came about in order to achieve something which would be interesting for the pupils and take the children on in their understanding of place value. On the whole I find that youngsters can work very well with numbers up to about 36 without having to start grouping in tens.

But when the need arises to start place value considerations I believe it is good to use numbers that they have already dealt with, without them considering the grouping of the tens. The results from children have shown that this activity allows for a lot of discussion and the beginnings of certain patterning ideas.

It has also been useful to help pupils start creating their own systems for doing these kinds of investigations. I shall be very pleased to hear how very, very able year 1/2 children do and how far they extend it.