It's that time of year again, the time we kindergarten teachers absolutely cringe thinking about...teaching place value. I don't know about you but I really think it's THE hardest concept for kinders to grasp. I've been doing a lot of researching and seeking of information to find ways and theories behind it to help me teach it in a more effective manner. I decided to be intentional with everything I did this year while teaching math to make sure students get it and enjoy it at the same time. So, I started with Calendar Math. Each day we do Daily Depositor and Paper Clip Collection where we teach place value. I honestly just did a lot of repeating of information. I also made one minor but huge change to my setup. I extended my hundreds chart to make it a 120 chart so they could see the extended pattern beyond 100 (which is the only 3 digit number on the 100's chart). Just seeing the numbers and counting to 120 has made big difference. They are extending their thinking beyond 2 digit place value, which is helping them to understand it better. I also did DAILY PRACTICE of the teen numbers in the fall when we were teaching number recognition. Each day we had a number of they day. We would write it, tally it, fill in the tens frame and write the number sentence to go with it. We did this every day in math journals for 2 weeks. By the end of the first week they were really getting it. Fast forward to this week where we are really breaking down the teen numbers and teaching the tens and ones. I decided to use the same thinking about teen numbers as I did with the 100's chart and extend their thinking beyond the teens in the hopes that it would help them better understand the concept. Each day in math journals we do a number of the day and it successive counterpart (11, 21, 31). I printed out tens frames onto Avery labels and gave each student 6 labels per day. We highlighted the group of ten and then put a label under the group. I started with 11. The students placed one label (group of ten) under the 1 (tens place) and then drew the extras in the ones place. We then counted using subitizing. Since we know that a filled tens frame is ten we don't have to count. We just touch it and say ten then count on from there to 11. We did the same thing with 21 and 31 to show that we are just building the place by adding one more group of ten. Here is a picture of what they look like.
During math workshop time we built upon this by building numbers beyond the teens using cube trains for our tens and buttons for our extras. I wrote a number and the students pulled in the correct groups of ten and extras. Then we counted each place and I wrote the number again emphasizing that, "43 is 4 groups of ten and 3 extras". The lights came on! It's amazing how helpful it is when we stretch just beyond the standard to teach a concept. I hope you find this helpful. You can get these pages and the coordinating labels for FREE in my TPT store under the listing PLACE VALUE FREEBIE FOR MATH JOURNALS. Click
HERE for the link.
