Math Topic: Number Sense

Subtopic: Place Value

Grades: 3-5

In the episode “And They Counted Happily Ever After,” the kids show Spider and his friends how to count so they can use place value to save the king from Hacker. Here students use place value to play “100 or Bust” and figure out a good winning strategy.

Learning Objective: Students use their understanding of place value to develop a strategy for a number game.

NCTM Standard: Number & Operations

DIRECTIONS

Materials (for each pair of players)

- Paper

- Pencil

- 1 die

Class Period: Less than 1

1. Give each student a chart as shown. Have students play in pairs.

2. To play, one person rolls the die and writes the number rolled in either the tens or the ones column on his or her chart. (A “4” in the tens column is 40; a “4” in the ones column is 4.) Then the second person takes a turn recording on his or her chart. The play repeats for seven rounds, and whoever gets closest to 100 — without going over — wins.

TIP: Use the tens column wisely, or you’ll go over!

100 or Bust!

Cyberchase Episode: “And They Counted Happily Ever After”

Hacker kidnaps the King of this fractured fairy tale world, and demands a ransom of golden eggs. The Wicked Witch then casts a spell, taking away everyone’s ability to count and making it impossible for the fairy tale folk to gather the required large number of eggs. With the safety of the King at stake, the kids must help the fairy tale folk understand the role of place value in our number system before time runs out!

The Big Idea: Let numbers stand for things in a regular pattern, and you have the power to keep track of anything and everything on Earth.

Cyberchase FOR REAL (Epilogue)

Hoping to pick up some pointers to improve the way she runs, Bianca volunteers to count runners in a marathon and uses an abacus to keep track.

Online games featuring similar math themes:
Number Machine (Players use place value to rearrange random digits to make a 3 digit number larger than Hacker’s)