Year 4 have been getting hands-on with their maths this week as they practised flexible partitioning of 4-digit numbers.
Flexible partitioning means breaking a number into different parts. For example, 3,462 could be partitioned as 3,000 + 400 + 60 + 2, but it could also be rearranged in other ways, such as 2,000 + 1,400 + 60 + 2. This helps children develop a deeper understanding of place value and how numbers can be composed in different ways.
To make our learning a little more exciting, Year 4 left the comfort of the classroom and headed into the hall armed with whiteboards and pens.
Everyone sat beautifully and listened carefully to the instructions... before Mr Loynds and a helpful Year 5 pupil tipped hundreds of place value counters all over the floor!
The challenge was on!
Children were given a 4-digit number and had to search around the hall for the correct counters to build it. Once they had made their number, they worked together to partition it in a range of different ways, recording their ideas on their whiteboards.
It was a fantastic hands-on activity that encouraged lots of mathematical discussion, teamwork and problem-solving.
The children thoroughly enjoyed searching for counters and experimenting with different ways to make their numbers. Mr Loynds also discovered another benefit to the lesson: a whole class of children enthusiastically cleaning up and sorting hundreds of counters at the end!
Many hands really do make light work!
Place Value Game - 18.09.26
