Today our question is right here on the board: What is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange? You already know how to ask a question and collect answers, so now we get to count them. Every time a hand goes up, we make one little tally stroke. And here is the clever part: on every fifth answer, we lay one stroke right across the other four, like a gate on a field. Ready to count?
Keep this brief — one sentence of set-up. Write the question What is your favourite fruit — apple, banana or orange? on the board so the class can see what they are collecting, then move straight to the tally. One stroke for each answer, a gate on every fifth.
Watch four strokes go up in the apple row, one for each vote. Now the fifth answer comes in, and instead of a fifth lonely stroke we lay it across the four as a gate. That gate is one bundle, and one bundle is worth five.
Look at the banana row now. There is one gate of five, and then two more strokes standing on their own. We read it as five, then six, seven. The gate does the hard counting for us.
The orange row has two full gates and two strokes left over. Count the gates in fives — five, ten — then add the two more to make twelve. See how quick the gates make a long tally to read?
Walk each snapshot in turn, pointing at the strokes as you count aloud.
Today we build a tally together as the answers come in. One pupil adds each stroke at the board, and everyone else has a job too: after each stroke goes up, we all say the new running total aloud together. We start with four strokes, then the gate on the fifth, then a seventh, and keep going to a whole row of twelve. That way we always know where we are.
This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.
Call answers one at a time and have a different pupil add each tally on the board. Watch especially for the fifth stroke: make sure it lands across the four, not beside them. Rotate four pupils. Have the class say the running total aloud together after each addition so the gate's jump-of-five becomes automatic.
In your maths copy, draw a tally of eight: one gate of five, and then three more strokes standing beside it. Under it, write the total: 8.
Walk the room glancing at the gate — the fifth stroke should cross the first four, and the three extra strokes should stand on their own. This is whole-class copybook practice, not marking.
Today we tally these totals together, each one a little bigger than the last: first 5 with one gate, then 8, then 11, then 12. Before each one, have a best guess at how many gates it will take and how many strokes will be left over — we will build it and check together, so a wrong guess is fine.
This round is the practice bank — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.
The build climbs: 5 is exactly one gate (no leftovers), 8 is a gate and three, 11 is two gates and one, and 12 is two gates and two. The 12 is the pay-off — pause there so the class sees two clean fives plus two. Treat the 'how many gates?' question as a best guess we check by building it, not a right-or-wrong test — the harder ones (8 and 11) are a stretch, so praise a good try and let the board do the confirming.
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