Beyond a Million
I am getting close to wrapping up Place Value for my 2-3rd graders. 
Some kids were asking me what is beyond a million. So I displayed this chart through my doc camera. We then looked for patterns and wondered how did they name millions “millions” and billions “billions.” This is what we came up with.
Billions means two, so we are adding two sets of three zeros to the original thousands zeros. Quad means four, so we are adding four sets of zeros to the original three zeros. That was fun! Tomorrow I will introduce a bit of scientific notation, just to sow some seeds.
Then I taught them how to play “Guess My Number.” It’s a simple logic game requiring no materials. The object is to guess the two digit number that I wrote down (I need to write it down, or I will forget it). So I just write it on a scrap piece of paper.
To set it up, draw three columns. Label the first one, “Guess.” Label the second one, “Correct of #digits.” Label the last one “Digits in correct place.” The only rules are that my number is a two digit number and both digits are different. You can play a three digit version of this too. So in the example below, the correct number is 48. So the first guess of 98, has one digit correct and that digit is in the correct place. The second guess was 89, which shows that one digit is correct but not in the correct place. You can see that some student didn’t quite understandd the logic. I randomly chose names from my popsicle sticks. When we finished this first game we went through to discuss what each guess could tell us.
We ended up playing this game several times and I will play it with them again tomorrow. This will also be a game that they will play together with a partner next week (some will play a three digit version.)
After we finished, everyone went to their appropriate math station.
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