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Elementary School Grade 3 Multiplication Operations and Algebraic Thinking

Counting Fifty Dollar Bills

This yielded a few really interesting mistakes, all pointing me to the same conclusion: my 3rd Graders need to learn how large numbers work. Though, as always, the student thinking itself was interesting.

Sorry that this kid used the “highlighter.” But they got 6000 for those 30 fifty dollar bills.

Their count: 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 900, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000. Thousands are stupid, we should just eliminate them entirely and count “11 hundred, 12 hundred, etc.” It would solve a lot of problems! We’ll have to wait until I’m King of Math to do that one.

This same student made another mistake while working on this problem. They asked me if 1000 was made of three 50s. I asked, “wait what?” They clarified that since two 50s make 100, maybe three 50s make 1000?

Fascinating!