Teaching Place Value
Using mathematical literature and games are two excellent ways to introduce and teach place value.
By Jacqueline Dwyer
My 8-year-old son is not yet at the point where he can calculate numerical extremes. He has no concept as to the mind-boggling vastness of the universe, or the inner workings of an atom. This kind of knowledge will come a bit further down the road. Lately, he has been learning about place value and the base ten system. These are essential building blocks for his later study of exponents and scientific notation.
To learn about place value, we took a cross-curricular approach. First we employed manipulatives (unit cubes, rods, and flats) to learn the value of ones, tens, and hundreds. Then, we made numbers using the manipulatives. We also played simple regroup/exchange games where my son would trade me ten cubes for a rod, ten rods for a flat, etc. He recorded his data on a simply prepared chart. By keeping a record of his data, my son could see how the numbers could be represented in both concrete and abstract ways. As time went by, the numbers got progressively bigger, and the games got more competitive. This served a dual purpose. The games were enjoyable, but they also let me assess his level of understanding, speed, and accuracy. Playing games helped my son to grasp these concepts so that he was able to quickly learn how to write each number in standard, expanded, and word form.
In order to expand upon, and reinforce this material, we read several excellent books. We discovered educational entertainment in works such as, Can You Count to a Googol? by Robert E. Wells, and David Schwartz’s Million series. My personal favorite was, If You Made a Million. I found that these books worked well alongside Ray and Charles Eames’ 1977 Powers of Ten video. We also studied a little of the Hindu-Arabic system, then leaped forward in time to examine to the names (and count the zeros), of some ridiculously large numbers, like novemdecillion (yes, you‘re right, it‘s 10 to the power of 60!). The lessons below present some wonderful ways to teach place value.
Place Value Lesson Plans:
Using Demi's "One Grain of Rice" students identify the place value of numbers they come across in the story.
Students name place value of digits to 9,999. They read and write place value in standard, word, and expanded form.
This fun, interactive game teaches students to hang "clothes" on numbers, according to their place value.
Reinforcement Lesson in Place Value
In this fast-paced lesson, children race to create the highest or lowest possible number using the numbers they roll with their dice.