Week 6 -Montague

This activity was done as a class. The students work on this activity after lunch during the scheduled mathematics period.

            The assignment was to fill out a number grid to 50 as a class, noticing the patterns of the grid. Before starting, the teacher also pointed out before that to make any number, you just need to be able to write the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. The teacher started y asking children if they knew how to write the number 46. All of the students said no. Then she said, well who can write 0? Then they all wrote 0 and they continued through 9. She then asked it again and once again, they all said they couldn’t write it. So she said, how she was sure that they all could and then asked the class what two digits are in the number 46. A student raised their hand and says 40, the teacher said well you’re right, the 4 in 46 stands for 40, so we have a 4. Then she repeated the number and asked what the digits were in 46 again. A student raised his hand and said, 4 and 6. So she wrote 46 on the board and pointed out that everyone who can write numbers 0-9 can write any number.

            My MT followed by starting to fill out the grid. The first row, 1-10 were already done but they went through, tracing the numbers and counting as a class. Then they asked which number comes next? 11 and it goes here… After the second row was complete, the teacher paused and said look, what do you notice about all of the numbers in this row? There was no response. She said, look closely, what do all of the numbers start with? They answered 1 in unison. The teacher then said so if these all start with 1, what do you think all the numbers in the next row are going to start with? A student raised his hand and answered 2. Students were told to go ahead and fill in 2 for the first digit in each box of that row. The teacher later went on to ask children about what they noticed about the columns. The responses varied however, I did hear a few students saying that all of the numbers ended in 5 (in the column that she pointed to, which was correct).

            After analyzing some of the grids, it shows that some of the students were able to follow along and fill it in correctly, while others did not grasp what we were doing.

            One way that I would anticipate grids to be filled out would be to have students write the two digit numbers in the wrong way. For example, 12 to be written as 21. Another way I would anticipate students to do this would be to not fill in the grid from left-right, top to bottom.

            The student’s grid that I analyzed: This student did not fill the gird out with the class however, it is clear that she listened to the different patterns. The rows were not complete so it looks like she may have messed up the pattern that the rows have but all of the boxes are filled out with at least one number. At first glance, I thought this student did not understand and did not follow along with the class instruction. However, when you look at it, you quickly notice that she knew the pattern of the columns! All of the boxes in the first column have 1, second have 2, and so on. It is also clear that this student is writing her numbers backwards.

            I would have children continue practicing with writing their numbers in the number grid. For those who did not get to 50, I would have them try again. For those who seemed to have mastered it, I would have them continue on up past 50.