Monday, December 5, 2016

The Twelve Days of Christmas

We read and sang 'The 12 Days of Christmas'. This version was different as it had 5 big, fat pigs instead of 5 gold rings! Here are the words of the last verse of the song.

On the twelfth day of Christmas 
My true love gave to me

Twelve piupiu swinging 
Eleven haka lessons 
Ten juicy fish heads 
Nine sacks of pipi 
Eight plants of puha 
Seven eels a swimming 
Six poi a twirling 
Five - big - fat - pigs ! 
Four huhu grubs 
Three flax kite 
Two kumera 
And a pukeko in a ponga tree!



Our maths challenge for the day was to find out how many gifts were received altogether.
We worked as teams in groups of 3.  Between us we came up with 3 different ways to add the numbers together.  Which do you think is the quickest?
The First Way:          The Second Way:         The Third Way:
1 + 2 = 3                    1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10         1 + 2 = 3
3 + 3 = 6                    10 + 5  = 15                  3 + 4 = 7
6 + 4 = 10                    15 + 6 = 21                   7 + 3 = 10
10 + 5 = 15                21 + 7 = 28                  10 + 5 = 15
15 + 6 = 21                28 + 8 = 36                  15 + 10 = 25 
21 + 7 = 28                36 + 9 = 45                    6 + 7 = 13
28 + 8 = 36                45 + 10 = 55                 8 + 12 = 20
36 + 9 = 45                55 + 11 = 66                11 + 9 = 20
45 + 10 = 55              66 + 12 = 78           20 + 20 + 20 = 60
55 + 11 = 66                                                    60 + 10 = 70
66 + 12 = 78                                                    5 + 3 = 8
                                                                        70 + 8 =78

When we had shared our different ways of solving the problem we worked together to come up with another way which involved making tens, using place value and also some multiplication.
1 + 9 = 10
2 + 8 = 10
3 + 7 = 10
4 + 6 = 10
11 = 10 + 1
12 = 10 + 2
Then there is 10 + 5
Altogether there are 7 tens.  7 x 10 = 70
5 + 2 + 1 = 8
70 + 8 = 78

Tomorrow we will have a second challenge, so watch this space!

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