Journal Entry #13

Itoman Gakken

Saturday, Dec 9, 2006

How much Money do you Have?

This was a natural segue from the previous activity. Since the students were given random amounts of yen value (5 yen to 500 yen coins) for their markers, each obtained a different sum of money that they had to report to me in English.

The real math lesson however came when I asked them to add up everything. What did they begin doing first? They began sorting and grouping. All 500 yen went in one pile, all 100 yen in another. It was then interesting how even though there were eight students, one student insisted that he be the counter. He then grabbed a calculator and began to confuse the matter even more. Everyone began disagreeing with him. So I then asked, “Well, how many 100 yens are there?” They quickly understood that 8 100 yens was 800 yen.

When all was said and done, there turned out to be 7,460 yen. This was a good activity for grouping, sorting, counting and adding.