Math: Comparing Numbers Within 1000

You may want to use this strategy to revise the concept of comparing numbers:

I begin the lesson by relating something familar to them (that is the base ten cubes). First, compare the hundreds. Then, the tens and finally the ones. It's ok to be explicit when explaining. You can relate a number (e.g. 321) to the image (see picture).

Pupils should recognise the block as one hundred without trying to count individually. The same goes for the tens. They need to know how to use the terms "greater than" and "smaller than" correctly. For example, 321 is _________ than 234.

The pupils grasped this concept quite quickly so I did not dwell too much on it. I went on to play a game for an extension activity and I would like to share with you:

Explaining the rules of the game on the whiteboard

Nothing beats a demonstration for the pupils before you start a game. Pupils work in pairs. I will use Ms Huang and Danial as the 2 participants for this explanation.

1. Divide the pupils' whiteboard into 3 columns (ones, tens and hundreds)
2. Both the participants agree on that the winner is the one who can get the greatest/ smallest number
3. Danial starts to roll the ten-sided die first and he has the digit '8'
4. Ms Huang has to choose to write '8' on any one of the columns
5. Danial rolls the die the second time and he has the digit '0'
6. Keeping in mind that Ms Huang needs to make the smallest number to win, she places the digit '0' in the hundreds place
7. The last digit is '4'
8. The game goes the same way for Danial BUT he has to do more thinking! Do you know why? :)

The pupils enjoyed this game today. If you don't have a ten-sided die, you can try going online for random number generator or make number cards and get your child to draw them from a container.

Simple & Fun!

Thanks for reading.

Miss Huang