Language (Poetry) and Role Play to Get to the Hundreds Place

Poetry is important in the learning process as words lead to exploration and understanding. It serves as a context to practice specific skills for their grade level. Poetry can be used to narrate incidents in a context using consistent language to promote a sound understanding of place value. Poetry is also correlated to self-expression and personal development. Role play has been an important tool in promoting “merriment” in language learners. Role play can be applied to learn subtle aspects of math and science. Role play in a context promotes self-efficacy. The purpose of using role play in connected incidents narrated in a poetry style is to encourage learners to enact the incident and engage them to promote deep learning.

The following poem is taught either by reciting it or role playing for deep learning place value and making purposeful connections.

One Hundred and Five — Is that what We Got

One dot, two dots, three dots, and four dots,

Like the flip of a coin, they landed in my pot,

I smiled with each toss, I loved it lots,

Zero had no dots, and nine had nine,

Those were the dots, and I loved it lots.

Then I looked at my hands and counted like the dots,

A dot was to a finger, like a plant is to a pot,

One finger, one dot, two fingers, two dots,

I counted all my fingers, and it was more than nine dots.

I could do lots more counting with the ten fingers I got,

I smiled ear to ear with an ecstasy of sorts,

A friend came along, and we waved a lot,

With his two hands, and two mine, let’s see how many fingers we got!

Ten fingers I got, and ten fingers he got,

All children got the same, and we enjoyed a lot,

We counted in the tens, a new number game I taught,

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty — we played, and we rolled, and we fought.

It was time for baseball, only two minutes we got,

Our teenage coach came, he shouted a lot,

“Come inside friends, over here it’s really hot”,

Those were his words, an instruction of sorts.

“How old are you?”, I asked, wondering what age he got,

I am sixteen, he patted me, and I felt like a tiny tot,

Sixteen is ten and six I thought, as I tossed ten coins into my head — my pot,

Then I looked at my ten fingers with an enigma of sorts

And quickly grabbed my friend’s hand — all in one shot

“Show me six fingers”, I said — he liked my idea a lot,

With me I had ten, and the six that he got,

We knew how to count the age, ten and six in one single shot.

Sixteen is no puzzle, nor is seventeen,

eighteen and nineteen, seem like many saplings in a pot.

That’s numbers one to twenty, and it’s a lot we got,

As numbers made us laugh, we wanted more than what we got.

So we walked to the store even when it was hot,

The tag read hundred and five, that’s the bill I had got,

I paid the cashier, and he thanked me a lot,

Then I thought and I thought.

I have ten fingers, and my friend with the ten he got.

It gives us twenty, and let’s call other friends to see what they got.

Friends after friends, we saw the fingers they got,

Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, and we called more to see what they got.

Nine friends there were — And fingers? Well, ninety they got.

Then one friend came, like a bot,

And so, in this way — hundred fingers we finally got.

That’s the price tag — the price tag also got,

But it had some more, and that looked like a lot,

A lot of work with ten friends that we got,

What is hundred and five then, I thought.

My friends and I thought of a plan — let’s see what we got

In a dilemma we swayed, like saplings in a pot.

We needed a plan after hundreds, and we need to think a lot.

Then one friend popped up and flew across the cot

In surprise we gazed as he ran a lot

Then came back to us, feeling tired and hot

What a pleasant surprise, another dear friend he had got

He displayed his fingers and there they were

Five more fingers we finally got

To make it to the numbers in the tag, I thought

A hundred and five — we finally reached in a shot

The best day we had even though it was hot.