Why learn about place value?
I thought that starting today with the question “Why do we need to learn about Place Value?” would prompt a lively and intriguing discussion. Ahhh ….. nope. I bit of a dud.
But I did get some truth nuggets from our discussion: easier to break apart numbers, helps with estimating, and important for your life (jobs, designs, sports, shopping, etc.)
After this discussion, we went to our stations. Since this was the beginning of the week, we had new activities: Bundle Additi
on, What Comes Next, and Guess My Number. I also included some Place Value worksheets into everyone’s math folder.
Bundle Addition
Working with a partner, each student grabs (with one hand) a bunch of straws. Using rubber bands, each student make groups of tens. They write the number down on their own whiteboard, i.e. 42. Then they write their partners number down too, and then add, i.e. 42 + 29. Next they combine their straws, make new bundles if necessary, and write the total.
What Comes Next
This activity has students extend the standard 1s, 10s, 100s, to make a model of 1000s. But the challenge is that they model needs to be flat.
I will explain the game, Guess My Number, in my next blog post, so stay tuned!
Day 1 – Place Value Introduction
Day 2 – Place Value Making Groups Part 1
Day 3 – Place Value Making Groups Part 2
Day 4 – Place Value Tens and Hundreds
Day 5 – Place Value Up to Millions
Day 6 – Place Value Reading and Saying Numbers
Day 7 – Why Learn about Place Value
Day 8 – Place Value Beyond a Million