{"id":1037,"date":"2024-02-06T04:30:35","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T04:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robvingerhoets.com.au\/maths\/?p=1037"},"modified":"2024-02-06T04:30:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T04:30:36","slug":"mab-v-other-materials-money-for-pv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/robvingerhoets.com.au\/maths\/2024\/02\/06\/mab-v-other-materials-money-for-pv\/","title":{"rendered":"MAB v Other Materials (money) for PV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Hi Michelle,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No worries about sending me an email – hope I can help out – but please remember that what I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

am giving here are only opinions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not too sure if it’s a myth or not but there is a supposed fact floating around that MAB was<\/p>\n\n\n\n

actually produced for kids in years 3 to 6 to help them get their head around decimals. The block<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(thousand) was actually supposed to be regarded as a 1. Which made the flats – tenths, longs –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

hundredths and minis- thousandths. Nice story! I can tell you that MAB works really well for<\/p>\n\n\n\n

decimals IF the kids are not brought up with it from prep – saved until grade 3\/4 – it’s great gear<\/p>\n\n\n\n

for decimals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not too fussed with it being introduced from early years – it’s just a resource alongside many<\/p>\n\n\n\n

others. Its worth lies with its relationship to place value. Kids can show 54 or 135 or 769 or<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1543 with it. It can help show how renaming looks with subtraction\/addition. It’s a good<\/p>\n\n\n\n

resource. And so is bundling and rubber bands, tens frames, popsticks (bundling) and rubber<\/p>\n\n\n\n

bands AND money – which has (gold coins and notes) – 1s, 2s, 5s 10s, 50s and 100s – giving it<\/p>\n\n\n\n

even more flexibility and options than MAB.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a prep understands that a $5 note is one thing but has the value of 5 – that is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

developmentally very big – and I see it regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Numicon (from Oxford Press) is also great material to introduce in prep – expensive but really<\/p>\n\n\n\n

effective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t know about kids getting confused – it’s normally teachers overthinking it and confusing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

themselves – get out of the kids road and they can get their heads around most things – sometimes<\/p>\n\n\n\n

with a little guidance from you and often with none at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would agree with the staff who are finding that waiting until a certain grade may be<\/p>\n\n\n\n

unnecessary and that there shouldn\u2019t be an arbitrary time\/age\/grade placed on this equipment.&quot;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I did a place value activity today that probably sums up how I feel about MAB\/materials in the<\/p>\n\n\n\n

lower grades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is an activity where I gave the kids (preps) a number on a post-it note. The numbers ranged<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from teens to low hundreds – as in 12 to 123. The kids were allowed to choose their number but I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

told them no numbers below 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most chose well – on occasion I cut a number back because I thought it was too challenging or I<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘upped’ a number because I believed the number the child had chosen was not challenging<\/p>\n\n\n\n

enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They then needed to make that number at least 2 different ways. I gave them a choice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

from the following materials:<\/p>\n\n\n\n