Best for
Use when you want number knowledge to feel purposeful rather than disconnected from the Unit 10 inquiry about scarcity and planning ahead.
Mathematics + social studies • Years 7-9 • Unit 10 support resource
Kūmara Storage — Place Value and Large Numbers
Students use place value, grouping, and fair-sharing thinking in a real context: counting kūmara, planning storage, and reasoning about how communities protect food for later. The maths matters because the quantities mean something inside mātauranga Māori about storage and planning.
Free place-value task, premium differentiated number set
This version is already classroom-ready. Te Wānanga becomes useful when you want easier or harder number ranges, local produce data, or extra extension questions generated.
- Swap in class-ready entry, on-level, and stretch number sets.
- Add supermarket, maara, or local harvest examples.
- Save an adapted Unit 10 numeracy pack in My Kete.
Kaiako planning snapshot
- Use length: 25-35 minutes.
- Grouping: Individual first, then paired comparison.
- Prep: Decide whether students need place-value blocks or number cards.
- Teaching move: Ask students to explain what each digit means in the storage context.
Resources already provided
- Place-value decomposition table
- Māori number-word reminders
- Fair-sharing prompts
- Planning and explanation space
- Teacher-only curriculum companion
The richest discussion comes from asking whether “fair” always means exactly equal, especially when mātauranga Māori about seed saving and collective care is in view.
Ngā Whāinga Akoranga / Learning Intentions
- We are learning to read and break apart large numbers using place value.
- We are learning to compare and share quantities fairly.
- We are learning to connect number work to planning and food security.
Paearu Angitu / Success Criteria
- I can decompose a harvest total into thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones.
- I can compare quantities and explain which is greater or smaller.
- I can explain what the numbers mean for storing and sharing kai.
1. Read the harvest totals
| Harvest total | Thousands | Hundreds | Tens | Ones |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4,356 | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| 2,908 | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
| 7,120 | ____ | ____ | ____ | ____ |
Māori number words
kotahi = 1, tekau = 10, rau = 100, mano = 1,000.
2. Compare and plan
Which store is larger?
Store A has 4,356 kūmara. Store B has 4,305 kūmara.
How much more?
Find the difference between the two harvests and explain why that amount matters.
3. Sharing fairly
| Question | My answer | Why this matters |
|---|---|---|
| 2,456 kūmara are shared across 8 whānau. How many each? | ________________ | ________________ |
| 20% must be saved as seed kūmara. How many are saved? | ________________ | ________________ |
| What should happen if one whānau helped grow more than the others? | ________________ | ________________ |
4. Explain the maths in context
Write a short explanation
How do place value and large numbers help a community plan storage, sharing, and future security?
Hononga Marautanga · Curriculum Alignment
Social Sciences — Tikanga ā-Iwi
Level 3–4: Investigate social, cultural, environmental, and economic questions; gather and evaluate evidence from diverse sources; communicate findings and reasoning clearly for different audiences and purposes.
English — Communication
Level 3–4: Read, interpret, and evaluate information texts; write clearly and purposefully for specific audiences; apply critical thinking skills to evaluate sources and construct well-reasoned responses.
Aronga Mātauranga Māori
This resource sits within a kaupapa that recognises mātauranga Māori as a living knowledge system with its own frameworks, values, and ways of understanding the world. The New Zealand Curriculum calls for learning that reflects the bicultural partnership of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which means every subject area has an obligation to engage authentically with Māori perspectives — not as cultural decoration but as substantive contributions to how we understand our topics. The concepts of manaakitanga (care for others), kaitiakitanga (guardianship), whanaungatanga (relationship and belonging), and tino rangatiratanga (self-determination) provide a values framework applicable across all learning areas, and all are relevant to the work in this handout.
Tuhia ōu whakaaro · Write Your Thoughts
Reflect on what you have learned today. What was the most important idea? What question do you still have?
Ngā Rauemi Tautoko · Support Materials
This handout is designed to be used alongside the broader unit resources available at Te Kete Ako handouts library. Related resources from the same unit are linked in the unit planner. All resources are provided — no additional preparation is required to use this handout in your classroom.
📋 Teacher Planning Snapshot
Ngā Whāinga Ako — Learning Intentions
Students will engage with this resource to build pāngarau (mathematical) understanding — developing number sense, pattern recognition, and mathematical reasoning through hands-on, culturally grounded activities that connect to tamariki's world.
Ngā Paearu Angitū — Success Criteria
- ✅ Students can explain their mathematical thinking using words, objects, drawings, or symbols.
- ✅ Students can apply the number or pattern concept in this resource to a real or everyday context.
Differentiation & Inclusion
Scaffold support: Use concrete materials (blocks, counters, fingers) for entry-level engagement before progressing to abstract representations. Offer extension challenges asking students to generalise a pattern, write their own word problem, or explain their strategy to a partner.
ELL / ESOL: Mathematical language is a discipline-specific barrier — pre-teach key terms (e.g., equals, more than, fewer, pattern, factor) using visual representations. Allow students to demonstrate mathematical understanding non-verbally or through drawing. Pair with a bilingual buddy where possible.
Inclusion: Embed choice in how students engage — oral, written, or diagrammatic responses are all valid. Neurodiverse learners benefit from short, chunked task sequences with immediate feedback loops. Avoid timed drills in favour of exploratory tasks that reward curiosity. Make the maths classroom a safe place to be wrong and try again.
Mātauranga Māori lens: Pāngarau is a living tradition in Te Ao Māori — from the geometric precision of tukutuku and kōwhaiwhai patterns to the navigational mathematics of waka hourua, and the seasonal calculations embedded in maramataka. Framing early number sense within these contexts shows tamariki that mathematics is a human, culturally rich endeavour — not a foreign import. Encourage students to see counting, measuring, and patterning as acts of knowing their world.
Prior knowledge: Designed for early learners. No prior formal mathematics knowledge required. Teachers should assess current number knowledge before selecting appropriate entry points.
Curriculum alignment
- Number and Algebra — Number Strategies: Use a range of counting, grouping, and equal-sharing strategies with whole numbers and fractions.
- Number and Algebra — Patterns and Relationships: Generalise that the next counting number gives the result of adding one object to a set and that counting the number of objects in a set tells how many.