Renaming Whole Numbers

When teaching place value, I believe that it is truly important that students are able to rename a number. If they can do that, it shows the students' understanding of the number. 

Here is what I mean by renaming. My example number is 253. 

Students should be able to identify that 253 can be represented as:

253 ones

2 hundreds 5 tens 3 ones
2 hundreds 53 ones

25 tens 3 ones

As a challenge for my upper primary students, I asked them to rename whole numbers of six and seven digits. I organised this activity as a challenge between groups; the group that was able to rename the number in most amount of ways won. One point was allocated for every correct renaming of their numbers. 

Although at first, it was a bit of a struggle, once groups got into it, they really impressed me with their skills. I also was able to see that some students need to work on their spelling on larger numbers. This was a great activity though to truly identify which students full understood place value.

Place Value Poster

This idea is from Runde's Room's Interactive Maths Journals. When teaching whole number place value, I created a place value columns poster based on Runde's idea. The slight difference is that I added the place value houses as I believe it is an added teaching tool for place value.

I used this poster when working with small groups to help them read and recognise whole numbers up to six digits. My students eventually made their own posters and we were able to have small competitions with our posters. In small groups, I would read a number to the students and they had to create the number with their number pullouts on their poster. Other teachers in my area have used the place value posters in their maths class as well with great success. It is an easy poster to create and you are able to model so much with it. Definitely worth the time creating it!

Decimal Poem

http://pinterest.com/pin/169236898469148083/

I found this on Pinterest and loved it. It is definitely worth sharing.While teaching decimal place value, students often get confused with how to read decimals. Although I teach using place value columns and houses, sometimes it just doesn't stick. So, I found this poem, and even though song is more of a lower primary thing, it worked well for my kids in upper primary.

I highly recommend using this when teaching decimal place value. Whenever a student would read a number incorrectly, I would just point to the poem and students were able to self-correct. 

An excellent tool!!!

Pirate Place Value

I found this wonderful and creative activity pack called Pirate Place Value (from Frogs and Cupcakes) and absolutely had to use it. My maths class loves to do activities and so I love making maths a "students-don't-think-they-are-learning-when-they-really-are" experience. Thus, rather than just having students do repetitious worksheets, I often use either activities or hands on learning for my lessons.

When learning/teaching place value, students should be able to represent a number in standard, expanded and word form. Here is a cute and fun activity for students to represent a number in all three ways. 

Build a Number

This is a great activity to test students knowledge of place value and decimal numbers. Although a few of my students struggled with this activity, many others were able to "step up" to the challenge and took their time to work out each problem.

A really good way to have students manipulate numbers and use the same digits to create decimals and whole numbers. I will definitely use this again!

I Have, Who Has - Place Value

It's been a while since I've posted something on my blog. I guess this past term has just gotten the best of me. So I have tons of items to blog about as it has been an exciting term with lots of learning. 

Here is a quick item but worked wonders! I never knew what these cards were called and always called them "I have, who has" cards. They can be used for almost any topic you want but recently a coworker told me that they are actually called "loop cards" and there are websites that you can create them on.

These loop cards were for teaching place value up to six digits with whole numbers. They required students to read the number in standard form and then read another number in expanded form. Each students has a card and when they here their number called in expanded form, they need to recognise it in standard form and it is then their turn to read out their card. Although it is a bit confusing to explain, it was an excellent diagnostic tool to see where students were with reading and recognising whole numbers up to six digits in both standard and expanded form and being able to switch between both. I highly highly recommend using these as a quick exercise to start off a maths lesson and get students ready for learning.