1. NZ Maths
  2. Supporting professional practice
  3. Curriculum elaborations
  4. National Standards Illustrations
  5. Year 4
  6. Counting Sheep: Year 4

Illustrating the Mathematics Standards

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Counting Sheep: Illustrating the year 4 standard

The following examples of student work illustrate achievement at the mathematics standards for year 4.
 

The task used in this illustration was one of several used by a teacher as part of a unit on multiplication and division. The teacher gathered samples of students’ work as evidence of their ability to apply multiplicative strategies in a variety of contexts.

The task relates to achievement objectives for Number from the mathematics and statistics learning area in The New Zealand Curriculum.

The Task

Counting Sheep

(Adapted from Building Graphs: Figure It Out, Algebra, Levels 2–3, page 10)

1 sheep has 4 legs:

  • How many legs do 4 sheep have altogether?
  • If there were 44 legs, how many sheep would there be?

Some features of students’ work used to make judgments in relation to the mathematics standards are described below. There is also an illustration of the year 3 standard and an illustration of the year 5 standard for this task.

New Zealand Curriculum: Level 2 National Standards: By the end of year 4
In solving problems and modelling situations, students will:
Number and Algebra
  • use simple additive strategies with whole numbers and fractions (number strategies)
  • know the basic addition and subtraction facts (number knowledge)
  • communicate and interpret simple additive strategies, using words, diagrams (pictures), and symbols (equations and expressions)
Number and Algebra
  • apply basic addition facts and subtraction facts, [and] simple multiplication facts, and knowledge of place value and symmetry to:
    - combine or partition whole numbers
    -     find fractions of sets, shapes, and quantities

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PDF of this task and Illustrations of the year 3, 4 and 5 standards (1.33MB)