Procedure
The major mathematics implied in both the text and the illustrations is that the trees are planted in equal rows.
He had dreamt about his trees, standing like soldiers in long straight rows.
It is quite natural to flow from this observation to activities involving arranging trees in rows. Poly Plugs make great representative trees. Some suggestions are:
- Suppose Kenju planted twenty-four trees. Make plug pictures to show how they might have been planted. Record all the possible ways.
- Kenju's mother bought him 200 tree seedlings. How many ways could he plant them in rows? How many in each row?
- Choose your own number for Kenju's trees. Find all the ways he could plant this number of trees.
- Kenju planted his trees in rows of four. What numbers of trees could he plant?
- Find ten tree numbers that Kenju could only plant in one row.
- If we know Kenju planted over 1000 trees and we know he planted in rows of seven, what is the lowest number of trees he could plant?
- Each of these tree numbers - 32, 64, 16, 24, 112 - can be planted in rows the same length. What is the smallest row length that would work for these numbers? What is the largest?
- Kenju planted thirty-six trees. Make a model of how they might have been planted and use straws to discover all the equations you can in the array.
- Kenju's whole field is planted in three rows of five. What fraction of the field is one row? ...two rows? ...three rows? ... one column? ...two columns? ...etc.
Please enrich this activity with more questions you use in your class, samples of student work and photographs of your Kenju Forests. You will also find the lesson links well with the software from Maths300 Lesson 97, Tackling Times Tables. It is very easy to interpret the screens in this software as trees planted in rows.
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Content
- counting
- division
- equations: creating/solving
- exploring large numbers
- fractions as an array
- fractions as a partition of a whole
- group (or skip) counting
- mathematical conversation
- mathematics & literacy partnership
- multiples, factors & primes
- multiplication - array model
- multiplication
- operations - whole number
- problem solving
- properties of number
- recording - calculator
- recording - written
- solving equations
- square numbers
- times tables
- visual and kinaesthetic representation of number
- visual representation of fractions
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