To see all of the work I do for TES Maths, including Resource of the Week, Inspect the Spec, Pedagogy Place, Maths Newsletters and Topic Collections, please visit the TES Maths Blog here
What is it?
As a secondary school teacher, in the last few years I have made a conscious effort to learn much more about the maths students do in primary school. And every time I do, I am simply blown away, not only by the breadth of topics and concepts that students cover, but also by the depth in which they cover them. Doing this has helped me in two ways. Firstly, I am now better informed as to the maths my Year 7, 8 and 9 students have experienced so I can start teaching them from where they actually are, and not where I thought they would be. But secondly, it gives me a whole new world of resources to download, adapt and use in my lessons. Take this beauty on decimals and place value, for example. It is essentially an entire unit of work, resources with activities, questions, prompts, teacher notes, supporting materials and more. It is wonderful.
How can it be used?
This resource is an essential planning tool. It moves us away from thinking that the optimal unit of planning is the lesson towards considering an entire sequence of lessons. And everything we could need is here. I particularly like the Destination Questions. I have found that planning with the end goal in mind to be useful in structuring my thoughts and lessons, and this selection of questions, which are signposted throughout the document, is excellent, including:
Kate rounded a number to the nearest whole number and the answer was 4.
Which numbers, with 2 decimal places, could she have started with?
and
Which calculations are complements to 1?
0.15 + 0.75
0.23 + 0.47
0.99 + 0.1
0.05 + 0.95
We also have speaking frames, and brilliant games in the form of Digit Placement and Decimal Range. This is an absolutely superb collection of resources.
Thanks so much for sharing
Craig Barton
Download: Decimal place value: Essential maths
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