Maths advice - any teachers or knowledgable Mums out there?

[sarahfreck]

Hi there
I'm wondering what you think.
Children are asked to add numbers in their thousands (with carrying) by drawing a number line.
eg 3784 + 2468
draw a number line and put 3784 on it. Then draw a jump of 2000 and add to get 5784. Then draw a jump of 400 and add to get 6184, then draw a jump of 60 and add to get 6244. Then draw a jump of 8 and add to get 6252.

At what age/stage would you think this is appropriate to teach. Am I alone in thinking this is rather hard for year 3 at this time of year (when they've only just been introduced to thousands)?

DD did similar in Y3 - not sure when in Y3.

They will, or should have, been using the same method to add tens and then aso tens and hundreds in key stage 1.

Some children just don't "get" number lines though so some find it harder this way than old fashioned column maths.

Dd was doing this in y2, with 3-figure numbers, so I expect 4-figs to come along any moment now.

It seems very long-winded method, with plenty of opportunity for errors. Will they not learn column addition at all?

Is this 'partitioning'?

No -its not partitioning - that would just be saying 3456 = 3000+400+50+6

The bit I'm concerned about is having to make one jump of several hundred that crosses a thousand boundary so early in the year when they have only just been introduced to 1000s

they are learning different techniques to get to the same answer - different from when we were children and only learnt one way

there is no difference from doing this in 100s apart from an understanding of place values

adding in columns will come as a technique

My DD did them in Yr 3, just after Xmas. She really struggled with it. T

he reason I remember where in the school year it was, is because as far as I was concerned the teacher's lack of helpfulness in helping DD understand it was the straw that broke the camel's back and we took DD out of school over it.

Had some in Y2 last year doing it; had some in Y4 not doing it. As and when they're ready.

The children gave probably been working with place value to thousands for a while so using those numbers in addition should be a natural progression.
I agree crossing the thousands boundary is tricky when adding the hundreds and calls for a very secure understanding of number.
Using a number line or expanded addition is great in that it ensures the children really understand what is happening to the numbers they are working with.
Lots of practice with the tricky steps in isolation eg 2678 + 500 would help with the overall process.

I think that's what I'm mainly concerned about Barbotine because AFAIK they were only really introduced to 1000s properly a couple of weeks ago and had just been doing 1000s partitioning. Seems a bit fast to move on to this, but I can see from responses here it's a usual thing to tackle in Y3!