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Copyright © 3P Learning – These resources have been created in partnership with Dr. Marian Small.
For more information visit
www.mathletics.com15 Blocks
Questions to facilitate the learning
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What is the least number you were able to represent with 15 blocks?
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What is a fairly high number you were able to represent with 15 blocks?
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How many numbers could be in the 800s? Why only those?
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Could any of the numbers you created have also been represented with a different number of blocks?
How many blocks could you have used instead?
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What did you notice about the digits of the numbers you created?
Scaffolding the learning
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Suppose you used 9 flats. How many other blocks could you use? What numbers of tens and ones
could you use?
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Suppose you used 7 flats and 3 rods. What numbers could you represent?
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What is the greatest number of tens you could use? Why?
What’s the point of this task?
It is important that students recognise that numbers can be represented in many ways. Because this task
requires 15 base ten blocks, students have the chance to work with numbers with no more than 9 ones
or tens or hundreds or thousands, as well as numbers represented with more than 9 of some unit. For
example, the number 24 could be represented with 1 ten rod and 14 one blocks.
Extending the learning
Students might consider numbers that could be represented with 24 blocks. They may notice that many
(not all) of those numbers could also be represented by 15 blocks; for example, the number 132 could be
represented by 12 ones and 12 tens (24 blocks) or 2 ones and 13 tens (15 blocks).
Number