Thursday 'Rithmatic: Place Value

There are so many great ideas for teaching place value to children. That's a very good thing for a couple reasons. First, it takes several repetitions to really cement the concept and be able to excel with the idea. Secondly, a lot of those ideas are horribly confusing and you need the alternative so you have something that is actually teachable! This activity is simple to use and engages students in practice that will keep them entertained for an entire math lesson.

The process is simple. Put students into groups of 3 or 4. Give each group a suite of cards 2-9 (make sure you remove face cards, aces, and tens). One person is the card holder. Another student draws a card for the tens place, and a third partner draws a card for the ones place. They then work together to fill in the blanks on this straightforward worksheet.

At the start of each repetition, the cards are placed in their respective columns. The recorder writes the resulting number in the first column. In the second column, they record the number of tens and ones in the number they created. The final column is for adding the tens and ones to show how they come together to make that number. (Ex. 42: 40 + 2 = 42) Your students will have such fun with the manipulatives, their group, the process as a whole!

CCSS.Math.Content.K.NBT.A.1 Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each composition or decomposition by a drawing or equation (such as 18 = 10 + 8); understand that these numbers are composed of ten ones and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.