[teacher2]

My students just aren't getting place value. We use Sadlier Oxford, the pages are nicely laid out, colorful, etc. But the explanations are just not making sense to many of the students. Does anyone have any fun ways to get the point across?

[gc]

I got this idea from Mailbox. Give each student a baggie containing 3 marshmallows (or 2 if you only go to to the 10's place), 3 (or 2) toothpicks, and 15 pieces of Fruit Loops. The kids construct 3 bases by pushing each toothpick into a marshmallow so that the toothpick stands up. Tell the kids to place the bases side by side as you tell them from right from left, they represent the ones, tens, and hundreds places. Next, have them slide cereal pieces onto the toothpicks to make numbers. The kids love it and really grasp the concept, and it is so easy!

[kmage]

We play a fun game to help 'see' tens/ones.
Each child has a tens/ones mat, 10 ones cubes & 10 ten rods.

I tell them that they are Santa's elves and wil help him make toys. Every time they have 10 toys made, they have to "put them in a box" (trade for tens' rod)

together we counted & added cubes to the ones side of the mat

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9... when we got to 10 we said "Elves, box them up" and traded the ones for a ten rod. 11...12........19... "Elves, box them up"

every once in a while we would stop and one student would tell us how many toys we had made. Another student recorded the number on Santa's workshop clipboard

[javateacher]

I agree with gc and kmage - you have to do a hands on building approach and 1 time won't be the light bulb you hope for but after several times of building and building they start to see the connection. Look for opportunities to show them in a subtle way. I have a place value count down until Christmas, etc... A bunch of manipulatives can be messy and hard to keep under control though so.... I set up miniature pizza boxes - one per student (personal pan pizza- unused of course). I have 100 mats, ten strips, and one unit pieces in each box. I just hand these out and it makes it more manageable and the students love putting them together for me. They stack nicely on a shelf. Just an idea!

[KarinT]

One thing that has worked for my class is every time I write a page number up on the board I ask the students what digit is in each place. Then I write "ones" above the digit in the ones place and "tens" above the digit in the tens place, and "hundreds" above the digit in the hundreds place. It takes less than a minute and they get a quick review often! Even my slowest kids are getting it now.

[MommyTN]

I do a short game called "Snap it, clap it, stomp it". It's just a quick little game I can do when there's not much time. Sometimes we do this with page numbers as I call them out during the day or with the calendar. I assign each group of kids a job (snapping, clapping, or stomping) and a title (ones, tens, or hundreds). They stand in order by group. If the number was 125, for example, the hundreds groups would snap 1 time, the tens group would clap 2 times, and the ones group would stomp 5 times. At first they just look at me like I'm crazy but after a while it clicks. Like a previous poster said, it's going to take a while, but they'll get there.