Big Order

Estimate or Calculate,
then arrange these statements in order of size

Population of the UK
Number of seconds in a week
A thousand squared
Days since 1st January 1
99 x 99 x 99 x 99
Correct Wrong

Topics: Starter | Arithmetic | Calculator | Estimating | Mixed | Place Value

  • Tam, Sussex PGCE
  •  
  • This one worked really well and got the pupils thinking! I made one change though, which was to change the number of days question to the days from 1500 AD because it was a bit too close to the number of seconds in a week, (700,000 and 600,000 respectively)
  • J Hitchcox, Sheldon
  •  
  • I liked this activity as it made the students think.
    Interesting some of the answers. Some students have no real value of size. I did not read the January 1st one correctly. I missed the 1 at the end.
  • Mr Keir, WHS
  •  
  • Well done Yr 10 Set 3 at Welshpool High School 2011! Jolly Good Show ALL CORRECT!
  • Transum,
  •  
  • Just in case you hadn't noticed, the statements above can be dragged up and down the list when you get to the sorting stage. Dealing with such large numbers is a great opportunity to introduce standard form or scientific notation. Calculators may have presented the answers to the calculations in this format. There is a link to the Transum standard form exercises below.
  • Ryder Craig, Linwood Avenue School, Christchurch
  •  
  • The last two are wrong! I calculated the whole thing after I finished it and the second last is in the tens of thousands, though the last is in the hundreds of thousands.

    [Transum: Thanks for leaving a comment Ryder. I think you have calculated the number of days since the 1st January in the year 1 incorrectly. Have another go.]

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Laptops In Lessons

Teacher, do your students have access to computers such as tablets, iPads or Laptops?  This page was really designed for projection on a whiteboard but if you really want the students to have access to it here is a concise URL for a version of this page without the comments:

Transum.org/go/?Start=September30

However it would be better to assign one of the student interactive activities below.

Laptops In Lessons

Here is the URL which will take them to a related student activity.

Transum.org/go/?Num=226

Student Activity

 

Curriculum Reference

See the National Curriculum page for links to related online activities and resources.


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