Introduction to the Stamp Game

Materials

• A stamp game box — or make your own: cut about 40 one-inch cardstock squares in each of green, blue, and red; write 1 on the greens, 10 on the blues, 100 on the reds, and 1000 on a second set of greens
• Your golden bead material for the opening comparison: one unit bead, one ten-bar, one hundred-square, one thousand-cube (the virtual golden beads work too)
• Pencil and paper for writing numbers

No materials at home? Use the virtual Stamp Game or Golden Beads & Mat.

Before this lesson

• Building Big Numbers (Formation)
• The Bird's-Eye View: 1 to 9,000

Aims

Presentation

1. 1 Set out one of each golden bead piece in a row: a unit bead, a ten-bar, a hundred-square, a thousand-cube. Let your child name each one.You know all of these. Show me the hundred. Show me the thousand.
2. 2 Open the stamp box. Place one green 1 stamp directly beside the unit bead.This is a stamp. It says 1 — this little tile is worth one unit, the same as this bead.
3. 3 Match the blue 10 stamp to the ten-bar, the red 100 stamp to the hundred-square, and the green 1000 stamp to the thousand-cube, pausing at each.The stamps are all the same size. Only the color and the number tell you what each one is worth.
4. 4 Put the beads away. From now on the stamps do all the work.
5. 5 Show how stamps are laid out on the table: in tidy vertical columns, thousands on the left, units on the right, each kind in its own straight line.
6. 6 Build a number such as 2,536 — two green 1000s, five red 100s, three blue 10s, six green 1s — and ask your child to read it.
7. 7 Write a four-digit number on paper and invite your child to build it with stamps. Then trade roles: they write, you build (make an occasional mistake for them to catch).
8. 8 Show exchanging: count out ten unit stamps, then trade them at the box for one 10 stamp. Trade it back the other way too.Ten of these is worth exactly one of these. Watch — nothing is lost when we trade.

Points of interest

• The tiles are all the same size, yet one is worth a thousand times another — only the color and the printed number say so
• Trading ten stamps for one and getting to decide which way to trade
• The 1000 stamp is green like the 1 — the color pattern starts over for each family
• Building a number with an empty column, like 4,053, and leaving the hundreds space truly empty

Control of error

• Matching each stamp to its golden bead quantity at the start shows exactly what each tile is worth
• The printed value on every stamp lets the child re-check any column by counting
• On the virtual material, each column shows its count, and ten-for-one trades are only possible when ten are really there

Vocabulary

• stamp
• unit
• ten
• hundred
• thousand
• exchange (trade)
• column

Variations

• Dictate numbers aloud instead of writing them, and have your child build what they hear
• Build numbers with a zero in the middle (4,053, 7,209) and talk about what the empty column means

Extensions

• Play bank: ask for 2,300 paid in the fewest possible stamps, then in all 10s and 100s
• Ask how many tens live inside 340, and prove it by trading

Follow-up work (pencil & paper)

• Write six four-digit numbers on paper (include at least one with a zero inside). Your child builds each with stamps, reads it aloud, then puts the stamps away.
• Your child writes a secret four-digit number, you build it with stamps, and they check your work against what they wrote — being the checker is powerful practice.

What comes next

Once your child can build and read four-digit numbers with stamps and trade confidently in both directions, move on to Stamp Game Addition — the first operation done entirely in symbols.

Next in this strand: Stamp Game Addition