Karen had the problem set up in modelling books for the groups to use. The problem was: "Mrs Schwenke bought 3 groups 15 currant buns from the market. How many currant buns did Mrs Schwenke buy altogether?
Karen put the children into 3 groups of 4 and got them to explain what was happening in the story. She used the 'talk moves' language, saying "Can I revoice it for you?"
When the children understood what the problem was about they worked with their groups - Karen chose who was going to be the writer for each group (everyone wanted to write).
When it came to presenting the answers Karen put the children into lines. When a group was presenting and drawing circles on the modelling book she asked "What do the circles represent?" I thought this was a good idea, making the connection that the circles represent something from the problem. Karen was encouraging, saying "Well done for being brave and attempting this," reinforcing positive attitudes towards maths.
After the children had presented their answers Karen made the connection that the problem could be represented as 3 x 15, which was the same as 15+15+15.
Lilianne reminded the children about splitting numbers, that it could be worked out as 3x10 + 3x5, so 30 + 15 = 45. She reminded them that this is called the distributive law.
Takeaway: I liked the way that Karen glued the maths problems into modelling books to keep track of them and so that the children could read the problem close up (one of the maths mentors mentioned that this affects their processing of what they read). I liked the way she set up her groups with everyone sitting in lines and a specific job in the group for each person. It was good to see the way she used the language from the talk moves and that she encouraged the children for being brave and standing in front of the class, acknowledging that it could be difficult to do this.
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