Material
- A quantity of coloured beads, golden tens, and squares of ten.
- The child’s sum book, or paper.
Presentation
- ‘Here’s one ten – write down 10.’
- Get the child to help you lay out 10 golden tens.
- Now ask the child to push them altogether.
- ‘What is 10 taken 10 times? It’s 100, isn’t it?’
- So lay out a square of hundred beside the 10 golden tens and write a zero beside the 10 in the child’s book, making 100.
Example
‘Let’s use the bead bar of 3. Write it down. What is 3 taken 10 times? 3 tens. Yes. Then let’s make the three tens 10 times. Lay them out on the mat as 10 groups of 3 tens’. The child then groups them into groups of 10 tens, i.e. of 100. He finds he gets 3 hundreds. So 3x10x10=300. To the 30 already recorded in his book he adds ‘0’ and so has 300. The child should experiment, using other numbers, always recording in his book. Give him prepared slips for work on his own, e.g. 3 tens 8 tens 1 ten. Take each of these numbers 10 times and record your answer. Be flexible about his method of recording.
Later, let him try 100 x 10, 200 x 10, and so on, always recording his work.