Place value, bundles, and Te Reo Māori

Mr Wong's maths groups are working on Place Value this term. On Monday they started with bundling piles of sticks into bundles of 2, 3, 5, then 10 to understand which amount is easiest to count large numbers with.

The task also involved writing numbers in Te Reo Māori because it is a better language to understand Place Value with, since the structure of numbers easily shows place values unlike English. An example is the number 13, which comprises of 1 ten, and 3 ones. In Te Reo 13 is "tekau ma toru", literally "ten and three". On the other hand English uses a new word, "thirteen", with only tenuous structural and pronunciation links to the number 13. Similarly with multiples of ten Te Reo uses words in a visible and modular manner whereas English invents new words from converted root words e.g. 40 in Te Reo is wha tekau (four ten) but in English is forty.

Some learners couldn't remember their tau (numbers), so fell back on the inferior choice of Google Translate, whereas others remembered to use their Smart Searching skills. Good on them!