ABOUT LOOP CARDS –
a short history
Single strings or loops of cards have been around for a long time. Before
we started teaching, teachers we have met were using them in the mid-1960s.
It seems that they were not in widespread use in the early 1970s, when
we were using them regularly, because the teaching approaches most in
fashion had moved away from whole class teaching.
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| These strings or single loops came in two sorts: |
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‘WHO AM I?’
- single chains of
separate answer/question cards |
‘FOLLOW ME!’
– single chains of
linked answer/question cards |
An example of a Who Am I? card:
Here 24 is the answer to the previous card in the string. This answer
is not involved in the next question – what is 20% of 300?
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An example of a Follow Me! Card:
Here 490 is the answer to the previous card in the string, and it is
used in the next question, the card asking you to divide 490 by 7.
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Although these strings and single loops
are useful, they have their limitations as well. We got quite imaginative
in our use of them with groups as well as the whole class, and built in
cards for abler pupils with added challenge. Recently we have written
four books of Who Am I? and Follow Me! Cards covering many years 3 to
6 key and other objectives. These books are available from PCET
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LOOP CARDS:
the Breakthrough
Adrian was working with an infant school in Kent as a consultant in 1978
when he invented LOOP CARDS. The reception / year 1 infant class in which
he was based had a very wide range of abilities, making it impossible
to use Follow Me! or Who Am I? sets. Yet these children really needed
practice of number bonds up to 10. He experimented with short loops of
6 cards used individually or by pairs. These were both effective and self-checking,
but then he suddenly realised the potential released if several compatible
small loops could be combined. A couple of weeks of intensive activity
followed, resulting in the first LOOP CARDS set: 6 mini-loops each of
6 cards, any of which could be combined into a game or used separately
as a self-checking set. Here’s an example of a mini-loop from that
set.
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MORE THAN 250 BILLION
WAYS
As we experimented with such sets, it gradually dawned upon us what we
had achieved.
A single chain of cards could only be played in one order, and a single
loop of say 30 cards could start with any card so have 30 ‘different’
ways of being played out – but still had just one order.
The original LOOP CARDS set of 36 cards could be played out in over 250
billion different ways, making it very unlikely that cards would ever
be played in the same order twice!
[It is more than a thousand times more likely that you will win a million
pound Lottery jackpot with just one card in a single draw, for example,
than that these 36 cards will be played out in the same order.]
How is this possible?
All LOOP CARDS have a Key
Number that is in each mini-loop and one of these key cards is always
used as the start card. In the original set that key number is 10.
FIRST CARD: there are 6 alternative start cards each with ‘10’.
The next time that a 10 is required through to the last time it is used,
there will be 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 different orders.
Just with the 10s, that = 720 ways.
There are three 9’s so 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 ways.
There are three 8’s so 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 ways.
There are three 7’s so 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 ways.
There are four 6’s so 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24 ways.
There are three 5’s so 3 x 2 x 1 = 6 ways.
There are four 4’s so 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 24 ways.
There are two 3’s so 2 x 1 = 2 ways.
There are five 2’s so 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 120 ways.
There is only one 1 = 1 way.
There are two 0’s so 2 x 1 = 2 ways.
COMBINING these alternatives we have:
720 x 120 x 242 x 64 x 22 x 1 = 2.57989 x 1011
or well over 250 000 000 000 - in words 250 billion.
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LINK
CARDS sets use the same structure that has been so successful for
LOOP CARDS. Instead of using each answer to start the new question,
LINK CARDS – like WHO AM I? Cards – are based on separate
Question and Answer pairings.
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NATIONAL
STRATEGIES: During the 1980s, we researched and promoted the use
of Loop Cards, extending the number of sets. By the time Adrian ran
a seminar on them at the ATM Annual Conference in 1986, there were almost
twenty different games, and these were put together into the LOOP CARDS
Book. By the time the National Strategies arrived in the late 1990s,
there were 42 LOOP CARDS games and several of the new LINK CARDS games
too. Both the National Numeracy Strategy and the Key Stage 3 National
Strategy made reference to the use of single loops or strings of cards,
providing some as resources. This has led to greatly increased interest
in LOOP CARDS and LINK
CARDS in the early years of the new millennium.
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