Lesson video

Hi everyone, it's Mr. Whitehead.

I'm here for a maths lesson called "Money Bags." What do I mean by money bags? Well, I have one.

This is my money bag, and I use it to keep coins in from another country, well from quite a few other countries actually.

See if you recognise any of the coins.

These are coins that I can use in any country that uses the Euro.

I like to take my money bag with me so that I know, should I need it, I will have some coins handy.

Where do you keep your coins? In a purse? A wallet? Or somewhere else? Well wherever they are, I hope that they're kept safe.

I'm going to put my money bags down, money bag down, so that I can get ready and focus for the lesson.

If you are not yet in a quiet space, could you take yourself off somewhere so that you're able to focus on your learning and give me your undivided attention.

Press pause while you get yourself sorted, then come back and we'll start the lesson.

In this lesson, we will be developing strategies for planning and solving problems. We'll start off with a match the fractions activity before we spend time exploring the problem and responding the problem, then I will leave you to complete the problem for your independent task.

Things that you're going to need: A pen or pencil, some paper, a ruler, and if you have them, seven penny coins.

Seven individual 1p coins.

Now if you haven't got seven 1p coins, you can use anything else that could represent that.

And that can be absolutely anything.

In school, we would likely give you a counter to represent something else.

At home, you may have some counters from some board games, but it might be that instead you've got some little stones, that you've got some Lego bricks, it doesn't matter what it is, as long as there's seven of them.

Press pause and go collect those items, then come back when you're ready to start.

Here we go.

Match the fractions and decimals.

On the screen right now there are fraction and decimal equivalents, common equivalents, that we should be able to recall.

Press pause, match up the fractions with their decimals, then come back and we'll compare.

Let's take a look shall we? Okay I'm going to remove the fractions.

Starting with 0.

5, can you call out to me the equivalent fraction, go.

Good, 3/6.

What else could we have said? 5/10, 1/2, good.

0.

75, we're thinking 75 hundredths.

So the equivalent fraction that you had to choose from, good, 9/12.

We could have said three quarters, for example.

And there are many fractions equivalent to 9/12 an infinite number in fact, so three quarters we could say is the simplest form of 9/12.

0.

4? Good, 4/10.

0.

25, we're thinking 25 hundredths, so we're thinking one quarter and the fraction that was equivalent to that, tell me.

Yes, 2/8.

Leaving you with one more fraction to choose from, tell me what it was.

Good, 1/5.

What else could we have said? 2/10, and again there's in infinite number of equivalent fractions.

2/10 is an interesting one to mention because of course 0.

2, the two is in the tenths place, two tenths.

Let's take a look at the problem that we're going to focus on in this lesson.

As I said it's called "Money Bags." Let's give it a read together.

"Louise had 7 pennies, which she divided between 3 bags.

Could she then pay any sum of money from 1p to 7p without opening any of the bags? How many pennies did Louise put in each bag?" That's the question you're going to answer by the end of the lesson.

Let's slow the problem down a little bit and answer some smaller questions that should be fairly quick for us to answer using the information that's there in the sentences.

So the first one, "How many pennies does Louise have in total?" Get ready to tell me on three.

One, two, three, tell me.

Good, Louise had seven pennies.

Next question, "How many bags is she putting the 7 pennies into?" Again, get ready to tell me on three, take a quick scan of the problem to remind yourself.

One, two, three, tell me.

Good, three bags.

She divided those seven pennies between three bags.

"What different amounts of money is she trying to make without opening any of the bags?" Have a quick scan.

Tell me on three.

One, two, three.

Good, any sum, any total, from 1p to 7p.

So she's trying to make 1p, 2p, 3p, 4p, 5p, and yes all the way up to 7p.

Each of those sums, each of those totals.

Let's think about what that means then.

So for example, if Louise puts 1p into each of the bags, which sums would she be able to make? Which totals would she be able to make using the bags, but not taking the coins out of them? What do you think? Yeah? What else could she make? Okay, is there an amount that she couldn't make? Good, really good calling out there, really good participation, thank you so much.

So based on what you've just been telling me, I agree she could make 1p just by using one of the bags.

She could make the total, the sum, 2p using two of the bags.

And she could make the sum 3p using three of the bags.

She couldn't make any other sum.

She only has three pennies, the maximum she can make is 3p.

In our problem Louise has seven pennies and you need to decide how to divide each of those pennies across the three bags so that she can make 1p, 2p, 3p, all the way to 7p.

It's important to think about how your going to approach this.

Now, I suggested that you get seven pennies or items to represent the pennies.

You might like to then draw some money bags or collect some bowls or something that could represent the bags, and physically divide the pennies across and once you have, then explore those sums that you can make.

Now, I suggested that you use this to record your findings.

You would represent on each bag the amount of money that you put in, and then make a list along the line of the sums that you've been able to make.

Press pause.

Go and have a go at solving the problem "Money Bags." There is a final solution, there is a way of doing it, so please don't give up.

Persevere, keep on trying, and then come back once you've got your solution to share.

How did you get on? Give me a wave if you managed to solve the problem.

On a scale of zero to five, how frustrating was the problem? Zero being "no it was a breeze, I didn't feel myself getting tense," and five being "I was seeing red by the end." Show me.

I think when I was working on this problem as I was preparing the lesson, I would say I probably reached a two, I probably reached a two on frustration levels, but like I said to you, knowing that there's a solution to the problem helps with keeping us on track and focused and calm.

So can you hold up for me please anything that you've been drawing, writing, recording, so I can see how you organised your thinking around this problem.

Looking good, I can see representations of those money bags.

I can clearly see the number of coins that you've put into each of the bags and then underneath that, the sums that you'd be able to make.

Let me show you some of my working.

I started off by thinking, "Right I'm going to have 1p, 3p, and another 3p." 7p split across the three bags.

And the totals I could make then, I could make 1p, I could make 3p, I could make 4p, I could make 6p, and I could make 7p.

I couldn't make each of the totals.

Which totals did I not manage? I couldn't make 2p, and I couldn't make 5p So I had to try another way.

That wasn't the solution.

I then tried 2p, 2p, and 3p across the bags and I was able to make 2p, 4p, 5p, and 7p.

Not the solution.

Why was this not the solution? Because I wasn't able to make 1p, 3p, or 6p.

So I tried again I had 1p in one bag, two pennies in another bag, and the remaining four in the third bag.

This time I was able to make 1p, 2p, 3p, 4p, 5p, 6p, and 7p.

That was the solution, each sum from one to seven was possible using those combinations of coins.

It felt really good to reach that solution.

Especially after trying a few and it not working.

Did it feel good for you as well? If you would like to share any of your learning from this lesson, please ask a parent or carer to chare your work on Twitter tagging @OakNational and #LearnwithOak.

Thank you for joining me for this lesson solving the problem "Money Bags." I'm going to go and put my money bag away.

I don't know when I'm going to get to use this again.

When I'm going to be able to spend any of those Euros in another country.

I hope that you are able to tidy away any of those pennies that you used or of course if it was Lego, put the Lego back in the Lego box.

If you were using counters from a board game, put the counters back into the right board games that you took them from.

If you've got any more learning lined up for the day, I hope that you enjoy it.

Use that same resilience that you used in this session to approach the problems and tasks in any of your other lessons.

I look forward to seeing to again soon for some more maths.

Bye for now.