Place Value

Place Value is a difficult concept for students to grasp. The introduction of Place Value officially begins in 1st grade. Because this idea is very challenging for students, it is so important to make it as concrete as possibly.  Combining manipulatives and a variety of instructional approaches will help your little ones fully grasp the idea of place value. 

Introduction: 

Before discussing place value, I wanted to introduce the 'rules' of place value. Using an abundance of resources to reach students in different ways is considered best practice. So, I started my place value lesson with a video that introduced the rules of place value. I have already created a link on Safeshare for this video, yay-- no annoying ads! I found this video on Youtube posted by Math & Learning Videos 4 Kids.

Place Value Introduction Video. 

*Reasons why this video rocks* 

It's so visual

It uses sounds to reinforce information

It's super interactive

After watching the video, I had the students discuss. Next, we read Earth Day Hooray! (Mathstart) by Stuart Murphy. This book incorporates place value with Earth Day! This book uses trash bags full of recyclable cans to represent place value! The kids absolutely loved this book! 

Earth Day Hooray on Amazon

I wanted to make the book a little more interactive, so I made mini trash bags "full of cans",  so the students could make numbers by breaking up the place value. I asked the students to use the trash bags to make (insert any number). One at a time, I had the students manipulate the amount of trash bags on the place value board!