Recommended Age: 4 years and onwards
Purpose: To show the child that 10 of a category equals one of the next higher category.
Level of Parent Involvement: Medium, the adult must facilitate the exercise with the child, once shown the child may play with an older sibling or another family member.
Prerequisites
- The child must be able to count accurately from 1-10
- The child must know the numeral symbols from numbers 1-10
- The child should have started working with the teen numbers and can count on from ten
Materials
- The Change Game PDF
- Scissors
- Laminator
- Laminating sheets
- A tray or basket
Preparation
- Print the first 4 pages from the ‘golden bead chips’ PDF (the coloured beads)
- Cut out the ‘golden bead chips’ from the PDF
- Laminate if possible to extend the life of the materials
- Divide the units, tens, hundreds and thousands so that you have equal amounts for the child’s mat and the child’s table
- Set up a mat on the floor with the cut up golden beads, keeping them in their respective groups
- Set up the child table with the ‘golden bead chips’ to use as the store
Steps
- Invite the child letting them know that you are going to play a game with them
- Show the child the mat where the golden bead chips are set up
- Show the child their table with the golden bead chips, letting them know that they will be using their table as the “store”
- Go with the child to the mat
- Confirm the child can recall the denominations by pointing to each group of beads asking the child “what’s this?” for the units, tens, hundreds and thousands
- Let the child know that you are going to count the beads beginning with the units and when you get to ten the child must say “STOP”
- Begin counting the units, “one unit, two units, three units” etc up to ten units, laying the cards out in a vertical line
- When the child says “STOP” ask them, “what does this look like?”
- The child should recognise that it looks like a ten bar
- Let the child know that they need to use their tray/basket to swap the ten unit cards for 1 ten card at the store
- The child goes to their table and puts the ten unit cards on their table and places a ten card on their tray and returns to the mat
- When the child returns, let them know that you will now count the tens and they must say “STOP’ when you reach ten tens
- Begin counting the ten cards laying them out from left to right, “one ten two tens, three tens” up to ten tens
- When the child says “STOP” at ten tens, ask them “what does this look like?
- The child should recognise that ten tens is the same as one hundreds
- Ask the child to swap the ten tens for one hundred at the store
- Repeat as above, counting the hundreds, stacking the cards them as you count them “one hundred, two hundreds, three hundreds” up to ten hundreds
- The child should recognise that ten hundreds is the same as one thousand
- Invite the child to swap the ten hundred cards for one thousand card at the store
- Leave the child to work independently practicing changing quantities
Variations
- None
