Place value in action
Comparing two-digit numbers is really a place value question: which has more tens? Pair this page with place value worksheets.CAPS links
- Grade RCompares two groups of up to 10 objects using words like more, fewer, bigger, smaller and the same.
- Grade 1Compares and orders whole numbers to 20, from smallest to greatest and back.
- Grade 2Compares and orders numbers to 99, and says which is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 more or less.
- Grade 3Compares and orders numbers to 999 using greater than, smaller than and equal to.
The CAPS ranges are numbers to 20 in Grade 1, to 99 in Grade 2 and to 999 in Grade 3. So in a South African class the to 100 level fits Grade 2, and the to 1000 level fits Grade 3.
CAPS phrases comparison in words in the Foundation Phase, so ask children to read each answer aloud as a sentence: “47 is smaller than 74.” For mental maths, follow up with the CAPS question “which number is 10 more?”
Summarised in our own words from the DBE’s Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) for Mathematics, Foundation Phase (2011).
