Math blocks. How many can you see?

Students were given a math problem and they were asked to figure out in groups how many blocks there were in the castle. Students were encouraged to find out how many ones, tens, hundreds and thousands blocks there were on the castle. Then they had to work with their partner to add up the answers and find out the total amount.
We discussed beforehand how to count the blocks and make it easy for us to figure out the answer. Students spent lots of time counting the blocks and writing down answers together. Some students found this hard and tried to individually count each and every block.
In the end none of the groups could figure out the answer by hand so i did a quick reflection and gave each group a calculator. So in turn we added another learning intention. WALT: use a calculator.
Students found this much easier to add up all the blocks and found out the answers together.
This was a very fun and interactive activity it taught us lots about place value blocks and the importance of place value.