Number busting – number talk (renaming 7 and 8)

A thinking mathematically targeted teaching opportunity, focussed on building knowledge of part-part-whole relationships to reorganise and rename seven and eight

Syllabus

Syllabus outcomes and content descriptors from Mathematics K–10 Syllabus © NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023

Outcomes

  • MAO-WM-01
  • MAE-RWN-01
  • MAE-RWN-02
  • MAE-CSQ-01
  • MAE-CSQ-02
  • MAO-WM-01
  • MA1-CSQ-01

Collect resources

You will need:

  • a number of the same items (for example, pasta pieces, counters, pencils or building bricks)

  • pencils or markers

  • something to write on.

Watch

Watch '7 is' video (4:46).

Investigate ways to reorganise and describe 7

(Duration: 4 minutes and 46 seconds)

[Text over a navy-blue background: 6 is…. Small font text in the upper left-hand corner reads: NSW Department of Education. In the lower left-hand corner is the white waratah of the NSW Government logo.]

Speaker

We can also investigate numbers using things like a ten frame...

[A large white sheet with a long line drawn in the upper-left corner.]

Speaker

...which is just a structure that we use to help us understand a numbers relationship to other numbers and the numbers that sit inside of it. And I started to draw a ten frame here...

[The speaker points to the space under the line.]

Speaker

...but I thought it might be good to show you what it looks like. You might also have a book at home about helping a child with literacy and numeracy that has a ten frame in the middle. But it's just a really big rectangle. So I’ve already drawn the first line, and in this case, today, I'm gonna draw mine like it's standing on a skinny edge so that it's vertical and I draw my rectangle...

[She draws a rectangle that is longer in height than length.]

Speaker

...and then I need to partition it in half, this way.

[She draws a line down the middle of the rectangle.]

Speaker

And now I know, because I've played around with them a lot, I need to do some internal lines…

[She gestures drawing lines across the rectangle.]

…so that I end up with five boxes on one side and five on the other. And so I know that means I need four lines.

[About less than a quarter down the rectangle, she draws a line across it. At the same length down each time, she draws 3 more lines across.]

Speaker

So I'm gonna put them about here one, two, three, four. And I should have five boxes on this side.

[She points to the left half of the rectangle. Then counts the number of boxes down.]

Speaker

One, two, three, four, five and five on this side.

[She points to the right half of the rectangle. Then counts the number of boxes down.]

Speaker

One, two, three, four, five. Which means I should have ten all together.

[She counts the number of boxes down the left half of the rectangle, then the right half.]

Speaker

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Which is why it's called a ten frame. So what I thought we could play around with is seven...

[She brings over purple pompoms over the ten frame.]

Speaker

...and explore different ways of thinking about seven today. So seven is...

[Next to the ten frame, she writes: 7 is…]

Speaker

...and I could represent it like this.

[She places a pompom into all left frames, and 2 in the top right frames.]

Speaker

And what I see here is seven is one column of five-

[She points to the left half of the rectangle. Then points to the 2 buttons on the right.]

Speaker

...and two more. So seven is...

[Under the text, in purple she writes: 5 and 2.]

Speaker

...five and two. Do you have another way, Ash, that you could arrange it?

Ash

Sure, so I'm going to have a look at seven as four and three.

[Ash places a pompom across the top 2 rows of the frame. She skips a row. She adds a pompom in the next frame, skips a frame, and adds one in each of the bottom frames.

Speaker

...OK. So seven is four and three.

[Under the text, the speaker writes: 4 and 3.]

Speaker

And you know what else I'm saying? If I move this one…

[She moves the pompom in the bottom-right corner to the left middle row.]

Speaker

…that helps me, I can also say that there's three blank spaces.

[She points to the empty frames on the right half of the rectangle.]

Speaker

So seven is three less than ten cause it's a ten frame.

[Under the text, she writes: 3 less than 10.]

Speaker

Do you think there's another way we could say seven?

Ash

So if I move this one over here…

[She takes the pompom from second last left row and places it in the right middle row.]

Ash

…I can say six and one more. Which makes seven.

Speaker

Do you know what we could do? Because mathematicians sometimes use colour. So if I swap to this one here…

[She removes the pompom in the bottom corner frame. She replaces it with a blue pompom.]

Speaker

…for a blue one. Does that help you see your six…

[She circles the pompoms in the top frames. Then circles the pompom in the bottom corner.]

Speaker

…and one?

Ash

It does. It does make it clearer.

Speaker

So we could even record it like that, too. So we could say…

[Under the text, in purple she writes: 6, in black she writes: and, in blue she writes: 1.]

Speaker

…six and one. So we can see the different colours are corresponding to our pretend counters, OK. Now that we're doing this, I could do something else. I'm gonna use these two…

[She brings 2 green pompoms over the frame. She takes away 2 of the purple pompoms.]

Speaker

…and say in this case what I'm saying, I can still see your six and your one.

[She circles the pompoms in the top frames. Then circles the pompom in the bottom corner.]

Speaker

…But the six is actually a four and a two.

[She circles the pompoms in the 2 top frames. Then circles the pompoms in the frames below.]

Speaker

…So I could say seven is four and two and one.

[Under the text, in purple she writes: 4, in black she writes; and, in green she writes: 2, in black she writes: and, in blue: she writes: 1.]

Speaker

Seven is four and two and one more.

Ash

Oh, I can say something else that I'd like to share. So in this four…

[Ash circles the pompoms in the top frames. Then circles the pompoms just below.]

Speaker

…I can see two and two. So if I…

[She takes the bottom two purple pompoms away and replaces them with 2 orange ones.]

Ash

…set those out.

[She points to each row with a pompom.]

Ash

I can say two and two more and another two more is six and one more make seven.

Speaker

So seven is…

[Under the text, in purple she writes: 2, in black she writes: and, in orange she writes: 2, in black she writes: and, in green she writes: 2, in black she writes: and, in blue she writes: 1.]

Speaker

…two and two and two and one more. Does that represent your thinking, Ash?

Ash

It does. I can see how the colours are shown by the ten counters.

Speaker

And you know what else we could do for this one…

[She traces the last text with her finger.]

Speaker

…is we could actually say that this is three twos and one more…

[Under the text, in black she writes: 3 twos and 1. She points to each row.f]

Speaker

…because there's one two, a second two and three twos, one two, a second two, three twos. And one more. There's a lot of things about seven. I wonder if you can find any extras.

[Over a grey background, the red waratah of the NSW Government logo appears amongst red, white and blue circles. Text: Copyright State of New South Wales (Department of Education), 2021.]

[End of transcript]

Instructions

  1. Choose a number such as 7.
  2. Get the amount of items for that number (for example pasta pieces, counters or pencils).
  3. Organise your items.
  4. Describe your collection.
  5. What other ways you can organise your items?
  6. Describe your other ways.
  7. You may like to use a mathematical structure such as a ten-frame to help you.
An example of using the structure of a ten-frame to think about and represent 7 An example of using the structure of a ten-frame to think about and represent 7
Image: An example of using the structure of a ten-frame to think about and represent 7

Watch

Here is another way we can play number busting using building bricks. Watch Number busting with bricks (2:26).

Use building bricks to rethink and rename 8

Michelle

So we were thinking about number busting and we thought we could probably do some number busting with Lego or investigate part, part, whole number knowledge onto Lego.

And so I've got a board here, my Lego board and I've got an 8 brick and what we were wondering is can we use the Lego then to show us different ways of thinking about or renaming 8.

Barbara

Oh, good idea.

Michelle

So Barbara, have you got some bricks that you could use that would fit into there?

So, and I could record it for us.

Barbara

Ok.

So I can say 8 is....

Well ,I know that 8 is also 4 and 4.

[Michelle writes the heading ‘8 is…’ and then ‘4 and 4’ underneath. Two blocks comprising of 4 are placed on the LEGO mat.]

Michelle

Ok. 4 and 4. Ayesha, have you got any?

Ayesha:

I've got some Lego here that can make 8. So it's 2 and 2 which is 4. And 2 more, which is 6 and 2 more which makes 8. So 2 and 2 and 2 and 2.

[Underneath the heading, Michelle writes ‘2 and 2 and 2 and 2’. Ayesha places 4 blocks comprising of 2 on the LEGO mat.]

Michelle

And if I wanted to I could look at it and say we've got one, 2, 3, 4 twos, so I could also describe that as 4 twos.

And mathematicians would call that multiplicative.

Can I have a go?

[Michelle also writes ‘4 twos’ underneath her list.]

Barbara

Yes.

Michelle

Umm ok, what about this? What about a 4 and a 2 and a 1 and a 1. Or I should read it across this way. A 1 and a 1 and a 2 and a 4. 1 and 1 and 2 and 4. Do you have another way Barbara?

[1 and 1 and 2 and 4 is written in the list. Blocks comprising of 2 ones, a 2 and a 4 are placed on the LEGO mat.]

Barbara

I do. So this one actually uses a 3, which we haven't used yet. 3 and 2 and 2 and then 1 more.

[Silent placing of bricks for 3 rows.]

Ayesha:

So, I've got a 2 and a 6.

[Michelle writes ‘2 and 6’ underneath her list as a block comprised of 2 and 6 is placed on the LEGO mat.]

Michelle

And then I think, yep, that's different, a 3, a 4 and one more.

[Michelle writes ‘3 and 4 and 1’ under her list. She places blocks comprised of 3 and 4 and 1 onto the LEGO mat.]

I wonder, are there any others?

More instructions

  • Can you try the same task using different equipment (for example, building bricks)?
  • Draw and record 3 different ways you thought about your collection.
An example of using building bricks to think about and represent 8 An example of using building bricks to think about and represent 8
Image: An example of using building bricks to think about and represent 8

Reflection

  • Were you surprised by all the different ways to make your number?
  • What did the different structures and patterns help you notice about your number? (For example, when we make 8 on a ten-frame, we can see things like 8 is 2 less than 10. When we make 8 using dice patterns, we can see things like 8 is made up of 3 and 5.)
  • What did you find interesting in this activity?
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