Thinking resources

Students read an extract about gathering water in Sāmoa to find information to fill in a chart. SJ-3-3-1999. Text provided.

Students interpret a back-to-back bar graph about apples picked by comparing and identifying patterns.

Decide whether the photographed animals are reptiles or not, and justify responses. (A fact file giving the features of reptiles is given.) Answer a question about why scientists have an agreed way of grouping living things. Assessment focus: using science-based classifications.

Students are required to compare sales represented on line graphs of the total sales and the pattern of sales over time.

For this practical task students construct a composite strip graph of the nutrient groups found in three different food products.

Students display data on a back-to-back stem-and-leaf graph to show the times taken to complete two walks. The longer of the two walks is then identified.

Students conduct a practical, statistical investigation. They decide on a question, categories, conduct the survey, tally and graph the results on a bar graph.

Students construct a back-to-back stem-and-leaf graph for heights of trees. They then answer a question on range and make a statement comparing the heights of akeake and kōhūhū.

Students work out the smallest and largest amounts of coins and notes in a piggy bank from statements about the number and type of money.

Students use the commutative property to find missing numbers in equations and explain the property.

A newspaper article on working from home is the stimulus for this resource. The assessment focus is on looking at both sides of an issue, vocabulary and comprehension.

Students display their knowledge of algorithms by filling in missing digits for some computations.

Students are required to explain the misleading aspects of two graphs found in newspaper articles.

Students are required to critique a survey and design another useful question to be included.

This comprehension task assesses student ability to identify important information to establish the main idea of a transactional text about blushing. SJ-4-1-2006. Text provided.

Students read a poem about air to answer retrieval and inferential questions. SJ-2-2-1999. Text provided.

Students predict whether two dice games are fair and give their reasons. They then play each game (investigate) fifty times and explain their results.

Students predict the outcome of throwing five dice and confirm their predictions by conducting an experiment and calculating probabilities. After discussing how to get better estimates, they pool their results with others to get a more accurate estimate of how good their predictions were.

Students throw two dice, add the numbers together, construct a tally chart of results, and compare theoretical with observed outcome.

Students count the number of pairs thrown in a series of throws of three dice to evaluate the long-run relative frequency of getting a pair.

Students explain who is most likely to win a game based on spinners, and how the game could be made fair.

Students calculate an average and a percentage from raw data and comment on these findings.

Students conduct a statistical investigation into the sentence length of different types of books by making and comparing dot plots.

Students write algebraic expressions which make equations true.

Students complete 3 multiplication arrays by selecting from given numbers.