Making maths fun with Pop Beads

I was out shopping when I came across these pop beads.

Pop went my brain too – bringing maths and ‘The Brain likes Colour’ to mind.

You see, I am working on a Place Value to 100 and Beyond package at the moment in which one of the central themes is purposeful counting. Purposeful counting of large collections is a sure fire way for students to begin to see why we need speed counting (skip counting, if you prefer) as well as why organising in 10s makes sense. These little pop beads have 170 in a packet, plenty to share and to count and sort.

Make 50

My first game idea for two players was a collaborative one (which you can differentiate by changing the target number to suit the players). On their turn players dip into a paper bag and take a handful of pop beads. They set them out to see how many they have taken.

The next player then decides whether to take a small handful or a large handful because the aim of the game is to have 50 pop beads by the end of exactly six rounds. Players confer, and may use a 100 square to help them plan their next ‘take’. It might well be that for the last three goes players take only one pop bead but that is fine. Over time and through discussions about counting on from any starting number by 10 the ‘takes’ should become more evenly distributed. In fact you might invent a rule that says you may not take a single pop bead or even as few as two.

Of course you could do this activity with other materials but I am looking for an excuse to go shopping for appealing, unusual and very colourful maths resources that don’t break the classroom budget. If you find exciting cheap colourful and safe items, please add to the list. Let’s get stocked up for next year!