Math Monday - Making a Number Scroll

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This idea comes from a friend of mine who teaches second grade.    I was telling her about Gman, who seems to pull something mathematical out of everything we do.   He has a strange gift for remembering dates from long ago, and can compute complex math problems rather quickly.  I always search for ways to keep him enthused!  


My friend, Meri, showed me this summer how her son (the same age as my son - 6) had been filling in blank 100s charts, then taping them together.  His goal was to get to 1,000.   Well, he has gotten to 1,000 easily and is working his way towards 2,000.


When my little guy heard about this he insisted I get a copy of the blank 100s chart and let him work on this project this week.  I'm happy to oblige, so I copied the chart and put it into one of the folders in his workbox.    Since I don't have any pictures (yet!), you'll just have to imagine an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper with a 10x10 grid on it, for your child to write 1-100.  When they finish that, they do another sheet and number it 101-200, etc...   Each sheet is taped to the next to make a huge number scroll.


Not only will it be fun to see how long the scroll will be, but it might be a good exercise in multiplication for my oldest (if one of the papers is 11 inches long, how long will a number scroll to 1,000 be?  What about 2,000?   Etc....)       


Lots of patterns are going to emerge during this activity as well.    If you have a child who is math obsessed like I do, they're going to get a real kick out of seeing how long they can make the scroll!  I'm pretty much thinking the teaching possibilities with this scroll could be ENDLESS!


Here is a link to a blank 100s chart.  

Linking to Math Monday: