AMSI Schools: Place Value Activities

Our previous post focused on forming the basis of place value understanding for primary-school aged children, particularly when using "tens" as the basis for the place value system. This post includes additional details and activities to get students more engaged and practicing their new skills. This is especially important when building a further understanding of numbers from ten to twenty.

Paper bag activities:

Sort numbers bigger than ten into one bag, and
Sort numbers smaller than ten into a separate bag

Beach ball activities:

Place the digits 0 - 9 on stickers on the ball - the person who catches the ball adds 10, 100 or 1000 to the number

Students can also sort numbers into the following "houses."

For instance, large numbers can be broken down as follows:

With a better grasp of large numbers, students can now use their understanding of tens within the place value system to break larger numbers into smaller components and fractions:

Students can use play-dough to break a whole into ten smaller parts to demonstrate the above diagram, which will help them visualize what one tenth looks like, and then, what one hundredth looks like: