Part whole

The part whole relationship is essential to understand many mathematical concepts. Early understanding of number requires understanding of parts that make a whole and algebraic reasoning requires understanding of the the different parts of equations. Below is a summary is what it could look like in classrooms using only number as an example.

Year 1:

Part whole begins with number. Number bonds to 10 can be encouraged through the sentence stem:

___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___.

Year 2:

Part whole can be developed to consider many different ways to make a whole. It may be structured using sentence stems such as this one:

___ is a part, ___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

Year 3:

Here we may start and introduce the formal method of addition and subtraction with the sentence stems running alongside it.

___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___.

___ is a part, ___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

Another way to think of this for addition could be:

___ is an addend, ___ is an addend, ___ is the sum.

Year 4:

Here children should partition numbers up to 9999 is lots of different ways, not just into thousands, hundreds, tens and units.

___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

___ is a part, ___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

Year 5

Children proceed to partition numbers using part-whole relationships, here children go up to numbers to 1,000,000.

___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

___ is a part, ___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

Year 6:

Numbers up to 10,000,000 partitioned in many different ways.

___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

___ is a part, ___ is a part, ___ is a part, the whole is ___

Of course, part whole extends far beyond place value and the four operations. It can (and should) be used in most areas of mathematics: fractions, decimals, percentages, algebra...