Solving problems to save Funky Monkey!

Today in maths we received a letter from Funky Monkey asking for our help! His letter said:

Dear Reception,

Please help me! A nasty sea monster says I have to give him half my treasure or he’ll eat me! I don’t know what half of these numbers are – can you help me?

I have:   6 glittering red rubies

              14 gold coins

              10 pieces of silver

              8 sparkling diamonds

              12 shiny pearls

Please let me know how much I need to give the sea monster!

Love from Funky Monkey

We talked about what 'half' meant and agreed that if you split something in half you are splitting it into two. We then went further by discussing how we would know the two groups were really both half the amount. Dexter said "they're even." We talked about the words 'equal' and 'same'.

Then we discussed what we could use to help us work out half of these amounts for Funky Monkey, and decided to use counters.

We used the counters to help us find half the amount. First, we had to check the amount on the letter. Then we counted out that number of counters. Then we had to share them into two groups. To make sure they had been shared evenly we had to count both groups to make sure they were the same. If we had done it right, both groups had the same amount in. However many counters were in each group was our answer. Then we just had to write the numbers down on the letter so Funky Monkey could know how much treasure to give the nasty sea monster!

Hopefully now Funky Monkey will be okay!