Children\'s Mathematics

Nursery: Charlotte’s ‘hundreds and pounds’

Charlotte chose some different coloured felt-tip pens and shouted out, ‘Look! I’m

doing hundreds and pounds!’ (Figure, 2.2).

Figure 2.2 Hundreds and pounds

Charlotte knows that:

• a hundred is a large quantity


• ‘pounds’ also have something to do with quantity


• you can represent quantity through action and pictures and attach spoken
  numbers to this representation.

These marks were made excitedly by Charlotte while she was with her friend

Jessica, in the nursery.They each selected a piece of paper and decided to choose

different coloured pens, dotting the whole piece of paper. Charlotte’s reference to

‘hundreds and pounds’ meant that she was making connections with the quantity

of dots: this seems a lot to her and a hundred fits into her thinking about a lot.

‘Pounds’ also fits into her sense of a large quantity. Charlotte is using spoken

language to express her actions and marks on paper.

16 Children’s Mathematics

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