The story of Number Bonds/Facts to 6 with Plus Bus

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The story of Number Bonds/Facts to 6 with Plus Bus

So now to the Plus Bus which is one of our earliest products and still selling well.

Plus Bus

Plus Bus - number facts/bonds to 6

There are six windows and it is designed to teach bonds to 6 and counting on, and generally the story of 6. Two insert buses show 1,2,3, or 4 people on the bus. (You can use these independently but most children only count the folding bus as the ‘proper’ one.) Once the insert is placed inside the bus, you can make a story about number 6.

Some examples of Scenarios and Uses

  1. If four children are viewed on the bus, how many more can fit on the bus?
  2. If the bus were full, how many have got off to go shopping?
  3. Can the children make up similar stories for the different number views? They usually like the ‘going to the loo’, ‘feeling sick’ ‘missed the bus’ scenarios.
  4. The reverse side shows six windows that you can write on and wipe off your passengers using dry wipe pens.
  5. Split pinholes are incorporated in each wheel so that the bus can be kept closed, or rotating wheels can be attached for the singing of the ‘The Wheels on the Bus’.
  6. Use finger puppets, or laminated photos of the children as counters to get on and off your bus.

For more information on this product click on the product image.

Number Bonds and Place Value – Zillions

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Number Bonds and Place Value – Zillions

So in September nearly every teacher in the Primary School sector from Year 1 to Year 6 will be teaching or checking that children know and can use, NUMBER FACTS/BONDS TO 10.

Why does it take children so long to learn these basic facts. See Blog 11 where stickers and ‘Friends’ will help.

Colour for teaching number bonds and facts

Zillions - number bonds to 10, place value, addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, equal too and more than and less than.

I had never used colour to teach bonds/facts and yet colour is a really useful memory aid. I was working on a product that had digits cut out so little children could ‘feel’ the eight or the four without seeing. I was trying to select 12 different colours when it suddenly dawned on me to repeat the colours. Zillions was produced and I worked with a bottom Year 2 group and just asked the four children to collect numbers in their colour. We did some sums with the numbers and talked for a while and as we went for lunch, I asked Paul what he’d collected. He did not say orange, but the 7 and 3s. What was Bethany collecting? “8 and 2″ he replied without hesitation. He could remember what each child was collecting – they always know everybody else’s business as well as their own!

The beauty of Zillions is that the digits can make ANY number and brings in Place Value.

If 8 and 2 are placed on the table, then the 1 can be paced in front to make 18 and 2 and then moved over to make 8 and 12. Take this one stage further and you can make 30, 40 or in fact any number.  The set also includes the signs so that you can make sums and remove the sign to see if the child can see which operation has been made.

For more information on this product click on the product image.

New Ideas for the School Classroom & Playground

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New Ideas for the School Classroom & Playground

It is the summer now, and September is only a few weeks away. Teachers NEED the summer to recharge. They can forget the little rascals from last year, and start with a ‘clean slate’ with your ‘fresh class’.

Teaching Games

You will be filled with enthusiasm and everybody tries out new ideas. Some work and some do not. Here are a few ideas that worked for me.

  1. When it comes to tidying up and the floor is covered in bits, give out strips of Sellotape  to the ‘active tidier uppers’ and not the ones dancing around in front of you. The strips dab on the floor and collect those tiny bits within minutes.
  2. Use some scrap paper to make some ‘Wet Play’ Books. They cost nothing, are quick to distribute and can be taken home when completed.
  3. If you have a headache or a sore throat or a noisy class, then have a ‘whisper’ hour. If you whisper instructions, they will whisper requests.
  4. If your children are old enough – instead of whispering – write messages with simple instructions, and children have to write their requests and answers.
  5. Give everybody a number and for registration they have to say their number in sequence. They must NOT say anybody else’s number.
  6. When lining up – everybody takes a number 1st to 30th out of a box, and that is the order they line up in. No arguments! If they drop their card, they stand at the back. Remind them to drop them back in the box ready for another day.
  7. To teach evaporation – tip a bucket of water over the playground and IN the sun. Draw a chalk outline and each time you come out, the water will shrink!
  8. To teach shadows, one child stands with arms outstretched and the other draws around the shadow. They then swap roles and WRITE THEIR NAME BY THEIR SHADOW. Throughout the day, stand in the same position and see how the shadows change.
  9. Get a watering can and empty the water on the dry playground into the shape of a letter or number. This is the track that children run around in the correct way. E.g. ‘a’ starts at the top and goes ‘round up and down the same way’.
  10. Place a few stones on a grassy area and check each day. What happens to the grass and why?

Cars - ordinal numbers

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Teaching Money, Money, Money! With Shopping

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Teaching Money, Money, Money! With Shopping

We attended the education show and had a fantastic reaction. On the way back, myself and a colleague raised the question, ‘What else do children like?’ FOOD we said in unison and The Café was soon in production.

The Cafe, Snack Pack and Lollies

It has been our best seller to date, and just has 10 food items marked 1p to 10p. It brings maths concepts such as ‘total’, ‘difference’, into a meaningful situation. Questions about change and money are endless. Problem solving situations are easy to highlight.

The Cafe

The Cafe - teaching money 1 to 10 pence

Yes there are burgers and ice cream items that are not the most healthy, but if children are interested, they will learn. The Café was such a success, that we soon moved on to a healthier second set that took food items from 10p to 20p and this was called Snack Pack with lots of fruit items within it.

Snack Pack - teaching money 10 to 20 pence

Following a SAT’s test with a lolly question that caught everybody out, we created Lollies with multiples of 5p.

Lollies - teaching money multiples of 5's to 85 pence

These three money products have sold so well. They make money more concrete and understandable. The reverse side of all have blank boxes so that all cards are adaptable to ANY amounts of money.

Money is so difficult to teach as you have to be able to count in 1s, 2s, 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s and 100s that are also 1s.

This is a great warm up exercise for the whole class.

  • They all stand and start counting perhaps from 30 to start in 1s.
  • When they get to 35 you say, ‘CHANGE – 5s’ and they carry on in 5s.
  • Once they get to 50 then say ‘CHANGE – 10s’ and continue changing the numbers as you go.

For more information on these products click on the product images.

Counting & Counting On…

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Counting & Counting On…

‘So obvious and so easy for children to do’.

NOT!

Certainly some children find it easy, but it is such a crucial concept that affects early addition and subtraction, and a skill still used regularly by adults on a daily basis. E.g change

Here are some useful ways to teach “counting on.”

  1. In the playground. Jump 4 jumps and freeze. (To keep everybody still.) Then say we are going to ‘count on 2 more”. No body will want to go back to the start so 2 more jumps will bring us to 6. REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT using the same numbers, but putting hands on heads and squeezing the 4 in your head, so 5 and 6 are the next two jumps.
  2. Sponge dice with red and spots on one, and numbers on the other. Start with 5 showing and throw the spotty dice and count the spots starting at 5.
  3. When doing the register, and you have to count the total with the whole class. They must LISTEN and STOP and SQUEEZE the number into their heads, and then count on and continue. Repeat this 3 or 4 times every time as you count to 30.
  4. Very useful for money work is being able to count in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 etc. It is also a very useful full class warm up exercise. Thus count in 1s starting at 18. At 22, continue counting in 2s until 38, then count in 10s, then 5s etc.
  5. See previous blog with the Heads that have the ‘hole in the head and the sliding rule’. Always stress that the number must be held in their head.

Fingers to count on & count back!

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Fingers to count on & count back!

Why Hands?

All children count on fingers to start, and yes, you do want children to ‘visualise’ the number and work in their heads, but fingers are useful and used by many adults.

We have all laughed at the child ‘ who has run out of fingers’ when working above 10. I was working with Year 2 and 3 mixed and asking children how they would do 12 – 7. I was trying to assess the children who could ‘count on’ to complete a subtraction. (This was long before compulsory assessment!)

That evening, I asked my son who was 6 the same question. He ran off without answer. About 1 hour later he returned and said ‘Now I can do it!’. He placed card hand on the table and then worked it out.  Thus in the set Heads and Hands, the hands can be used for bonds up to 20. If the sum is 18 take away 6, the children can put the card hands down, and eight of their own fingers and easily take the 6 away. This concrete view then helps children to see that you can just subtract the units and leave the ten in tact.

Did you know that Asian children are taught to count 3 on each finger?  If you look at your hands and bend the fingers you can count the lines where the fingers bend. They also count 4 by touching the top of the finger.

Heads & Hands for Addition, Subtraction and Number Bonds/Facts to 20

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Heads & Hands for Addition, Subtraction and Number Bonds/Facts to 20

I was off with my products and each time I had £ or credit, then I designed a new product.

Heads and Hands were one of the next products and it looked at bonds to 20.

Heads & Hands - to teach addition, subtraction, counting on and counting back to 20

Children always had problems working above 10 as they only have ten fingers. Getting children to ‘count on’ beyond 10 was also difficult, and subtracting even more problematic. (They count back down the number line and forget if they have to count the one they start with and the one they land on.)

With ‘counting on’ I always stressed ‘PUT THE NUMBER IN YOUR HEAD, AND COUNT ON’.

I thus designed a boy and girl cartoon Head with hole in the forehead, so that you can see the number on a vertical slide rule. Subtracting was simple, just slide backwards and see what you land on.

This helps with timing, but what you really want is for children to manipulate those numbers in their own head. This set gives the bridge between physical and abstract.

For subtraction you want children to ‘count on’ to make a number, and this is where the “heads’ help with ‘timing’.

  1. The sum (number sentence) is 8 + 4, so slide from 0 to 8.
  2. You are going to add four more, but are you going to go back and start at 8???
  3. No, you are going to ‘count on’ four more and land on 12.
  4. Now go back and do it again, but count the four numbers – 9, 10, 11, 12.
  5. The number you land on is the answer and gets the tick.

Just so easy for adults and many children, yet so difficult for others.

(All nursery and reception teachers will know about the stage where they HAVE to count those five fingers again in 5 + 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.)

For more information on this product click on the product image.

Digit Pop Ups – number bonds and number lines made fun!

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Digit Pop Ups – number bonds and number lines made fun!

Back to Maths…

I had two products – Place Value and Fractions

Number Bonds was a huge part of my supply work and I was always amazed at how long it took children to learn their bonds to 10. (Now known as ‘facts’ as in America!)

I started calling them Friends and linking them to friends within the class, so 6 and 4 would be Tani and Chloe etc. Good old stickers are great fun. It might not last long, but give every child a sticker on their jumper and match the bonds and the friends so 6 and 4 can go out to play, and 7 and 3 etc.

The birth of Digit Pop Ups

Digit Pop Ups - number bonds and number lines

My son was young and had one of the toys that popped a Disney type character when you pressed the red square, or blue triangle etc.

I combined a number line with characters that popped up and Digit Pop Ups was born. 10 people ‘pop up’ to reveal the number, or ‘pop down’ to hide the number. I sold 20,000 on the first print run and are still going strong.

Thus the first three products were great successes, and I thought I was going to make my fortune. WRONG! The educational world is hard going and I can design products with ease, but I look at a ‘profit and loss’ sheet with glazed eyes!!!

(See blog 6)

Look on YouTube to see these first three products in action.

Type in…

Sweet Counter: Early Years-Part 1

Sweet Counter: Early Years-Part 2

OR 

Go to our Website at www.sweetcounter.co.uk/ to see demonstrations of a selection of our educational resources under each individual product page.

For more information on this product click on the product image.

A True Bully Story

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HERE IS A TRUE BULLY STORY

It may be useful for an assembly.

 

Norma Jean was not popular.

Jenny was one of the most popular girls in the class.

Norma Jean had been away and I over heard Jenny asking where she had been.

(I was on playground duty.)

She told how she had been to her Gran’s and Jenny continued to ask what she had done, and if she had had a nice time.

Norma Jean was clearly pleased to be asked details by this popular child.

“Good – you should have stayed there.” – shot Jenny.

 

I was horrified to see how she had picked her out, built her up, and shot her down in just a few sentences.

Popular and Bully can go Hand in Hand!

It was the only time I have actually caught verbal bullying in action!

Please note that the very best thing about not teaching is NOT DOING PLAYGROUND DUTY!!!

“OH, AND MONDAY MORNINGS”

Primary School Social Mapping

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I just did a talk and very few people had heard of this really useful ‘social mapping chart’. It shows where the ‘power’ is within the ‘peers’.

As the children are going out to play, ask them to write their name on a piece of paper and underline it. They then write down two people who they would like to sit next to if they had a choice. You may have to help some very young children with the writing of the name, so these children can whisper to you. They must also put the first initial of the surname if there are two children with the same name.

Once all the papers are in, it takes about 20 minutes to chart the results. Get a piece of blank paper and write the underlined name of the child and then draw arrows pointing to the going to the names of the other children.

You will soon see a pattern of the popular children getting 4, 5, or even 6 arrows.

A few children will just have one arrow and a reciprocal arrow.

3 or 4 children will have NO ARROWS.

Can you look at the dynamics of the class and decide why this is????