Experiencing 100 with Y1

Here’s an idea for helping children to experience numbers up to 100. I came across it in a NCETM video in October last year (not quite in time to use it with class).

On the video, a year 1 class had a display on which they count the school days in a year. The number of days was shown using dienes, Numicon and symbolically. The children described how many days there had been, for example, on the 27^th day as two sets of ten days and 7 more. After 100 days the class held a 100-themed party to celebrate.

The children saw the number of days increasing gradually; they saw ten ones become one ten; quantities were represented using different visuals. It gave me an idea. We’ve just moved house, so I thought I’d count the first 100 days with my 5 year-old daughter – it’ll give us another opportunity for a party too!

As you can see, we’re going to record the day on a number line, using 10-frames, symbolically and on a diary. We’ve not unpacked yet, so I’ll need to find a better space for our poster than the kitchen table… I’m sure it’s also an idea that many teachers will consider using with their classes.

I hope you have a fantastic start to the new term. Look out for my upcoming ‘For me to improve…’ series of blogs, being written soon, where I will write about my weaknesses as a teacher and what I’m doing to address them. It promises to be a great year!