Level Three

This means students will use co-ordinate systems that are used on maps to specify location and direction (for example Greensborough Reserve is at D1, Ruakura Road runs West-East). The scale of a map indicates distance.

At Level Three students should be able to:

This means students will make drawings of objects, which can take the form of plan views or nets.

This means students will be able to define the characteristics of things and use these characteristics as a basis for sorting. Plane figures are those that lie flat, so have only two dimensions. So circles, triangles, and hexagons are all plane shapes.

This means students will begin by measuring the areas of rectangles and other shapes using square units. This is because square units of the same size tessellate, that is join together with no laps or overlaps. That means that the measurement is consistent whereas the use of a non-tessellating unit would give variable results due to gaps and overlaps. Similarly, volume is measured in cubes of the same size. At Level Three students should apply whole number multiplication to make the process of counting squares or cubes more efficient.

This means students will recognise that length, area, volume and capacity, weight, angle, and temperature are the characteristics (attributes) of objects people most commonly measure in everyday life. Time is a special attribute since it is not tangibly attached to physical objects. Measurement involves quantifying an attribute using units. Units of measure have characteristics including being a part of the attribute they measure and uniformity (same size). When measuring, the units need to fill a length, space, time etc., with no gaps or overlaps (this is known as tiling).

This means students will recognise that a sequential pattern can be either spatial, for example .., or numeric, for example 1, 3, 5, 7... A pattern has consistency so further terms of it can be anticipated from those already known. The focus in this thread is that students become increasingly sophisticated at describing the relationships between variables found in sequential patterns.

This means students will generalise, which means to establish properties that hold for all instances. Generalisation begins with noticing patterns and relationships in a few specific instances, defining the variables involved, noticing the relationships between the variables, then using appropriate mathematical terminology and symbols to describe the relationships. At Level Three students develop many generalisations that allow them to perform mental strategies effectively.

This means students will use words, symbols and diagrams to explain their number strategies to others. Recording also allows students to think through solutions to problems and allows them to reduce their working memory load by storing information in written form. This is particularly important for the solving of complex, multi-step problems. Students should be able to write the numerals for whole numbers to 1 000 000 at least, simple fractions, percentages and decimals.

This means students will understand the meaning of the digits in a fraction, how the fraction can be written in numerals and words, or said, and the relative order and size of fractions with common denominators (bottom numbers) or common numerators (top numbers). Fundamental concepts are that fractions are iterations (repeats) of a unit fraction, for example 3/5 = 1/5 + 1/5 + 1/5 and 5/3 = 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3. This means the numerator (top number) is a count and the denominator tells the size of the parts, for example in 5/3 there are five parts.

This means students will develop a multiplicative view of whole number place value that involves more than knowing the significance of the position of digits in a whole number, for example In 239 456 the 3 means three ten thousands. Strategies for computation require a nested view of place value and understanding the scaling effect as digits move to the right and left in place value. This means that nested in the thousands are hundreds, tens and ones in the same way that nested in the tens are ones and tenths, for example 239 456 has 23 ten thousands, 2394 hundreds, and 23 945 tens, etc.