fun ways to practice place value

Fun Ways to PRACTICE Place Value

Are you looking for some fun ways to practice place value?  I feel like I start a lot of my posts with… “This is one of my favorite things to teach…” I’m starting to wonder if I just LOVE teaching almost all things math! 😉  I really do love teaching place value – I feel like I totally missed out on this in my math journey, and so I love the fact that we are teaching this to elementary students!

What does place value help with?  If students have a good grasp on place value, it will help with multi-digit addition and subtraction, greater and less than activities, ordering numbers, and eventually much more!

So I’d love to share some fun activities (hands-on and no-prep) that you can incorporate into math centers, early finishers, sub tubs, small groups, and/or remediation, intervention, and enrichment.

Let’s GO!

Place Value Center Game

Once you’ve introduced/taught place value (tens and ones) to students, you can quickly add this place value game to your math centers or use as a whole group game.

Here’s how it worked in our classroom as whole group activity:  READ MORE HERE!

There are six sets (each set has a letter for easy classification)

We had six tables, so each table got a set (table one got set A, table two got set B, etc)

All of the cards are in the middle of the table

Students grab place value cards and numbers and match them up

You can play table against table, or just have each table working and you walk around (depends on your students – some years, competitions work, and other years I avoid completely)

Centers:

We put each set in a photo box Then students grab one photo box and use the cards as a matching center.  There are QR codes on the cards if you want students to check their work

EARLY FINISHER

This set also comes with an early finisher ppt.  Present on your board, and students work through the self-checking slides – fun, functional, and super easy to implement!

fun ways to practice place value
fun ways to practice  place value

Early Finisher Place Value Games

As you know, I love my early finishers!  It’s just a great way to keep the learning moving along, without any addition set-up on the teacher.  All you do is press present, and the slideshows do the rest.  These are self-checking and students are always so engaged.

Here’s how they work:

  1. Open up the ppt/google slideshow
  2. Press present
  3. Students have either a white board or they use the mat that comes with the early finishers
  4. A problem is shown to the students
  5. They write down their answer
  6. After so many seconds, the answer appears
  7. Students check their work, then erase
  8. Then the slideshow moves on to the next slide

Place Value Boom Cards

Obviously I have all of my place value games as boom cards as well – no shocker there! I mean… digital, interactive, self-checking, super easy to assign, and sooooo much fun… how could I not have them as Boom Decks? 😉

 

fun ways to teach place value
fun ways to teach place value

Looking for a bit of robotics with your place value?

Yep… I have Bee Bot place value mats as well!  Your students will love that they get to program their bee bot while practicing place value skills.  My number decective bee bot mat is super fun!

Hear it from others:

💬 Brooke says: This was a great resource to use in my STEM specials class with my bee bots to help reinforce what they students were learning in their general education classes. 

💬 Stephanie says: I have a couple of struggling students that have great difficulty with the math that we are completing. I have shown them how to use the robots and complete some of your resources. They love to work on these skills and they feel as if they are playing games! I love these for those students.

Want to help with counting coins?

When our new math curriculum had students use dime and pennies for place value, our lives were forever changed!  Money was always SOOOO hard for some of my students, but once we used dimes and pennies – mic drop!

For these, we use the I HAVE WHO HAS game – and let me just say… it took a bit for students to catch on, but once they did – they LOVED this game.

We play it whole group but we also play it during centers.  My students actually came up with how to play it during centers.  Here’s how it works:

  1. Students can play in groups of 2 or 4
  2. They divy up the cards and place their set in front of them
  3. Anyone can start – they say I have who has
  4. Whoever has the next card goes – as they find their card, they turn it over
  5. Once all cards are turned over – they game is over
  6. If they can’t turn over a card, that means that someone made a mistake, and they need to start again

 

 

fun ways to teach place value

This set is FANTASTIC!!! Way to get them thinking above just basic counting

TPT BUYER

Great activity and aligns perfectly with first grade money standards for counting tens and ones.

TPT BUYER

My students loved playing this game and asked for it whenever we had some free time!!

TPT BUYER

Love that this packet combines money and place value! Challenged my students to think! Thank you!

TPT BUYER

fun ways to teach place value

Place Value Mystery Pictures

I honestly thing that mystery pictures were one of the first things I bought on TPT (maybe right after color by number activities).  My students LOVED them, and they were so easy to use – no prep, just press play.  So when a clipart made some for us to buy, I quickly jumped all in.

So here’s how they work:

  1. Open up the ppt and press play
  2. Students are shown the colors they will need
  3. Then it says – ready, set, go
  4. At this point, students are shown base ten blocks – they count, then color in that square with the color it says
  5. The slides are timed, so it automatically moves on to the next slide after so many seconds
  6. Once students finish the slideshow, they have a beautiful picture

Great for early finishers, whole group activity, and sub tubs!

Bingo Games

Bingo games is another fun way to practice place value.  Your students will love to play this whole group or during a center!

 WHAT’S INCLUDED: TONS OF OPTIONS!

  1. 3×3 200 Color cards (9 words on each card)
  2. 3×3 Black and white cards (9 words on each card)
  3. 4×4 200 Color cards (16 words on each card)
  4. 4×4 200 Black and white cards (16 words on each card)
  5. 5×5 Color Cards (200 cards)
  6. 5×5 Black and white (200 cards)
  7. Calling cards color and black and white
  8. If you decide to print 4 to a page, I have a cover that you can use for photo bins
fun ways to practice place value
fun ways to practice place value
GRAB A GAME BOARD AND SPINNER TO USE WITH ALL TASK CARDS
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CENTER BOARD GAMES

There’s a lot to be said for the tried and true board games.  Yes, students learn the concepts being taught with these games, but in my opinion, they learn so much more.  They learn how to take turns, they learn how to win/lose, they learn how to play with their classmates, they learn how to be leaders and followers.

I can think about our own experience here. I honestly couldn’t wait for my first born to be old enough to play games!  Crazy, right!  But it’s true.  and to be very honest, we are still a game playing family.  Yes, we’ve moved from Candy Land to Catan – but still – we absolutely love sitting around the table playing games!  But in this experience, I was the adult helping them with the games.  It’s very different when they are playing during centers with little supervision.

Taken from Scholastic:   “Strategy games are useful in helping the frontal lobes of the brain develop,” says Beatrice Tauber Prior, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist, author, and owner of the private practice Harborside Wellbeing. “Those frontal lobes are responsible for executive function skills, which include planning, organizing, and making good decisions.”

A lot of my task cards come with a matching game board, but not all of them.  So grab the freebie above so that you can use the task cards as games anytime you want!

PLACE VALUE BOARD GAMES

These Digital (also comes as a printable version) task cards were created to use during centers after you teach the lesson. This bundle covers place value, comparing numbers, and addition and subtraction resources.

USE THE FREE BOARD ABOVE TO TURN ALL OF THESE INTO BOARD GAMES.

This resource covers:

  1. Tens and ones
  2. Place Value
  3. Addition and subtraction of tens
  4. Using dimes and pennies to count tens and ones
  5. +1, -1, +10, -10
  6. Ordering Numbers
  7. Greater Than Lesson Than
  8. Addition Fluency (with regrouping – 2-digit addition)
  9. 2-Digit Addition with adding tens first to solve
  10. 2-Digit Addition with adding ones first to solve

Each set comes with:

  1. DIGITAL task cards (COMES AS PPT AND AS A QR CODE CARD for students to scan and “play”)
  2. QR code card to check answers
  3. Answer sheet for students to write on
  4. Printable task cards – (4 on a sheet)
  5. Answer Key

LET’S PLAY BATTLE

Taking it back a few decades!  Anyone loved playing Battle?  I can remember hours upon hours of playing with my grandma – as busy as she was, she always made time to play games with me.  Priceless!

Anyway – here’s a fun way for you to incorporate the Battle Game into your math block.  Students can practice place value as well as counting tally marks and tens and ones.  It’s fun, easy to learn, and the students love playing card games instead of learning games (hahahaha!!!)

fun ways to practice place value

I hope this blog post helped in some small way.

Until next time!

Shanon Juneau – We Are Better Together