Mental Oral Starters Year 2 Autumn Teaching Sequence 11

Activity 1

Objectives: Understand multiplication as repeated addition

Count in 2s, 5s and 10s

Resources: A mug; ten each of 2p, 5p and 10 coins

Level of difficulty: Easy/Medium

· Show children the mug. Choose a child to put 10p in the mug. Agree how much is in it.

· Explain that you will be dropping 10p coins into the mug and that you want them to count in tens to keep a track of how much is in the mug. Ask them also to hold up one finger for each 10p you drop into the mug.

· Drop 10p and support the children in saying ‘twenty pence’. Continue until you have 50p in the mug.

o How many coins are in the mug?

o How many fingers are you holding up?

· Agree that five 10p coins make 50p. Tip them out the check.

· Count 10p coins into the mug again, occasionally stopping to ask,

o How many coins are in the mug?

o How much money is that?

· Continue until you have 100p.

o How much do we have now?

o What's another way of saying this?

· Repeat, this time dropping 2p coins into the mug, asking children to hold up a finger to help them keep track of how many coins are in the mug.

· Repeat with 5p coins.

NB: You will probably need to count a little more slowly when counting twos and fives than in tens.

Activity 2

Objectives: Understand multiplication as repeated addition

Count in 5s

Resources: Hands

Level of difficulty: Medium

· Ask five children to stand at the front, holding their hands up. Count along the line of hands, five, ten, fifteen… fifty.

· Repeat, this time asking children to hold up one finger for each hand they count, still saying five, ten, fifteen… fifty.

· Throw one or two large spotty dice. (If the total is 11 or 12, throw again!) Read the total, e.g. eight.

o We shall count eight fives.

· Help the children at the front to show eight hands. Count along the line, asking children to hold up a finger for each five said.

· Repeat several times.

· Repeat, but this time asking all five children to show their hands, and for children to stop counting in fives after the number of fives rolled on the dice. Keeping track of the number of fives on their fingers should help.

NB: This could also be an easy activity for counting in tens, with ten children at the front each showing ten.

Activity 3

Objectives: Understand multiplication as repeated addition

Count in 10s

Resources: A beanbag and ten towers of 10 multilink cubes.

Level of difficulty: Medium

· Sit children in a circle. Provide a beanbag for them to throw.

· Throw the beanbag to a child, saying ‘ten’ as you throw it.

· Ask that child to throw it to another child saying the next multiple of ten, i.e. twenty as they throw it.

· That child throws the beanbag to another child, saying ‘thirty’.

· Pause. Ask the child now holding the beanbag

o How many tens there are in thirty?

· Give them a chance to respond and then demonstrate that three tens make thirty using three towers of ten multilink cubes.

· Now ask the child to throw the beanbag on to a child of their choice saying the next multiple of ten.

· Continue like this, pausing at intervals to ask how many tens in a particular multiple and demonstrating how many there are using towers of ten multilink cubes.

· When you reach one hundred, ask each child throwing the beanbag to count back in tens.

· Continue like this until you reach zero.

NB: this can be extended to practise counting in fives for more able children.

Activity 4

Objectives: To know facts for the 2x table

Resources: Whiteboards; spotty dice

Level of difficulty: Medium/Hard

· Ask children to work in pairs, each pair with a whiteboard.

· Each pair writes four even numbers between 1 and 21 on their board and draws a circle around each one.

· Throw one or two large spotty dice. (If the total is 11 or 12, throw again!) Read the total, e.g. eight.

o We shall count eight twos.

· Using fingers, and altogether in unison, count: two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen. Children should now be showing you eight fingers. Stress that eight twos are sixteen. If any pair has this number on their boards they may cross it off.

· Continue throwing either one or both dice and playing like this until one pair have crossed off all their numbers. Bingo!

Activity 5

Objectives: Understand multiplication as repeated addition

Count in 2s, 5s and 10s

Resources: A jam-jar of 30 1p coins, 15 2p coins, and 10 5p & 10p coins

Level of difficulty: Medium/Hard

· Show children the jar of 1p coins.

o How many 1p coins do you think are in this jar?

· Encourage children to talk to a partner and give you an estimate. Record estimates on the board.

· Explain that we shall count the 1p coins. Discuss with the children how we might group them to count them accurately. Take suggestions. Hopefully someone will suggest counting in 2s.

· Count them, grouping them in twos to count.

o There are thirty.

· Look at the estimates.

o Who was closest?

· Ask the children how many 2p coins we would have to have in a jar to have the SAME amount of money. Children talk to a partner and then make suggestions.

o How many groups of two?

o Look at your groups of two.

o There are fifteen.

o We would need fifteen 2p coins.

o How many 5p coins would we need to be the same amount?

· Children talk to a partner and then make suggestions.

o How many groups of five?

· Group the 1ps in fives.

o We would need six 5p coins.

· Repeat this to find how many 10p coins.

Activity 6

Objective: To rehearse number bonds to ten

Resources: Large cards 0-10; multilink cubes

Level of difficulty: Easy/medium

· Shuffle the cards. Place them in a pile face down.

· Ask all the children to put both hands behind their backs.

· Explain that you will say, ‘ready, steady, go!’ and then children will bring out their hands from behind their backs with some fingers standing up and some folded down.

· Say ‘ready, steady, go!’ and then look round at the hands held up before you. Very slowly turn over a card. Read the number.

· If any children have the number of fingers standing which adds to the card number to make ten, they get given a multilink cube, e.g. if the card is 6, any children with 4 fingers standing get a cube!

· Place that card to one side and repeat the activity, turning up the next card on the pile once children have shown their hands.

· Continue to play like this. Who ends up with the most cubes?

NB: Children should start to predict the card numbers with greater accuracy as some card numbers have gone, e.g. if we have had the ‘6’ card, they should not bother to show four fingers standing.