Sunday, 8 September 2013

Did you know that 2013 is the first year since 1987 not to have a repeating digit? 
This is a great investigation to set your class.

• Which years since 1900 have two or more repeating digits?

• Can you see any patterns?

• How many years had three repeating digits?

• 1991 had two sets of repeating digits – how often has that happened since 1900?

• When is the next year with two repeating digits? …three repeating digits?

This investigation can be given without using dates and with a focus on place value.

• Using the digits 2 0 1 3 write all the 4-digit number that you can make without repeating a digit.

• What is the largest number you can make with no digits being repeated?

• What is the largest number you can make if your number had 2 repeating digits? ….3 repeating digits? …. 4 repeating digits?

• What is the difference between these three numbers?

Helpful hint: Talk about the zero. A number cannot usually begin with zero, eg 0132 would have the value of 132 as there are no thousands. Explain that sometimes the zero is used, especially when writing dates. 08/09/2013 is the 8^th September 2013. It shows that a digit has not been missed and computers need dates entered as 2-digits. 

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