Categories Math

Place Value Introduction!

Happy Tuesday? OK, can I just say that I’m slightly annoyed at all these people posting about snow and snow days?! Seriously people…it’s COOOOLD here but no snow. This northern boy wants a nice snow. Like 4-5 inches. That’s all. But I live in the south so it probably won’t happen. Meanwhile, I’ll just be annoyed at all of the lucky snow bunnies. ANYWAYS…

Do you ever go into a lesson nervous about how it will go and if the students will “get it?” OK…isn’t that every lesson?! Today was one of those days. Place value. Tens and ones. Kindergarten. I was nervous. And then the lesson is over and they GOT IT?! Like really got it?! Like everyone got a 100 on the independent practice?! YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So what did we do???

We did a hands-on lesson using our tens and ones. I introduced the lesson by displaying a ten frame that was showing 10. I asked what it was and they said a ten frame. I asked how many. The staches all knew it was 10. I then showed them the rod and asked them how many they thought this block was. They said 1. Of course…it’s one block, right?! I told them to think of the ten frame and how many the ten frame was. They answered 10. Then I said to think of the rod as a ten frame. I asked again how many it was and most said 10. Still a few said 1. So, we counted the cubes on the rod and discovered it was TEN! We discussed the cube and it was clearly just 1. Then we had to time to “explore” with our manipulative. That’s code for I let the ‘staches play with the cubes for a few minutes. It makes the lesson go smoother…they get to play before the lesson so they’re not playing (as much!) during the lesson.

I displayed a number. We read the number. Then the ‘staches were asked to build that number with their cubes. Of course, we tried to use our cubes but we didn’t have enough (everyone had 2 rods and 9 cubes!). Then we discussed how many the rod was worth and they remembered 10.