Two of Everything

Last week, some of the upper primary classes (divisions 7, 8 and 9) were read the first part of the story Two of Everything in the library. It is a traditional Chinese folktale about an elderly couple who find a special pot that doubles anything that is put in it, including gold coins! As we read, the students used mental math strategies to make predictions about what would  happen if five or ten or twenty coins fell in.

I then introduced my special pot and role played parts of the story. Then I changed the rule for my pot and instead of doubling pot, it was now a +3 pot. We had the students predict how many "coins" would come out if 2, 4, 5, etc were put in. The students were then asked to create their own "magic" pot and identify what the number pattern rule is. They were asked to represent what would happen with their pot using pictures, numbers and words.

              

           

       

     

The students came up with so many interesting magic pots and did an amazing job of demonstrating and communicating their understanding of the mathematics involved.

~Ms Novakowski