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...
