Fractions - Recognise a third - Starter

In the Year 3 mathematics lesson for Spring Term, Week 12, Day 1, students are introduced to the concept of recognising a third. The lesson starts with a 'Fluent in Four' revision exercise, where students are challenged with a series of questions to consolidate their understanding of various mathematical concepts. One of the questions requires students to add together two numbers, which are represented in a non-standard format to test their place value knowledge. For example, the sum of '3 hundreds, 9 tens and 1 one' plus '9 ones, eight tens and four hundreds' is calculated to enhance their mental arithmetic skills.

The lesson also includes a visual activity where students must identify which two shapes out of three options have been divided into thirds. This helps students apply their understanding of fractions to geometry. Additionally, the lesson prompts students to think critically about number patterns by identifying the odd number out in a sequence and explaining their reasoning. For instance, in the sequence '0, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14', the number 5 is the odd one out because the pattern increases by twos, and the number should be 6. Furthermore, the lesson engages students in a classification task, asking them to consider properties such as stacking, rolling, colour, edges, vertices, and faces to determine how shapes have been sorted, such as sorting them by the number of vertices they have.