Number talk

A powerful way of getting pupils to think their way through maths is to set them mental arithmatic problems. The pupil then has to talk their way through the problem. Such a problem might be "What is 18 x 5?". Do that in your head! It's not hard and there are many ways to do it. What it does require is the ability to change the problem into a series of easier ones and combining them to arrive at the answer. This concept of changing a problem into a series of easier ones is central to maths, and it is important for pupils to become familiar with it. In this case, perhaps the easiest approach is to divide the 18 by 2 to get 9; and multiply the 5 by 2 to get 10; then multiply 9 and 10 to arrive at the answer of 90. But it would be equally valid, since 18 is 20 minus 2, to multiply 20 by 5 to get 100; then to multiply 2 by 5 to get 10; then to take the 10 from 100 to arrive at 90. Alternatively, one might do the straight forward formal way of multiplying 5 and 8 to get 40, and multiplying 5 and 10 to get 50, and adding these two numbers together to arrive at 90. The point of exercises like these is to get the pupil to think of novel ways of achieving the desired outcome, so that they learn to apply logic and reason to the maths and to become clever and inventive in how they approach maths problems. At Puppet Maths we promote this way of thinking about maths.