Place Value (Numbers Have Names)

My mother was a public school teacher for 30 years. She was certified for K thru 12 but settled into teaching second grade. At the time one of the major hurdles she had was teaching them place value. The curriculum that they had took a few weeks to get the concept across.

I went in there and had in done in two days literally. 100% competency every kid in her class understood the numbers have two parts "the how many part" and "the what kind part" and the numbers tell you how many the places tell you what kind combined with base ten blocks even the SPED kids had NO PROBLEM.

I remember my mother asking wryly, "now what are we going to do for math for the next too weeks?"

So I taught them algebra.

The principal of the school who had a minor in mathematics came to the classroom for something and he stopped at the door as I was casually teaching a group of 2nd graders to factor polynomials...by then they were giving me the factors of problems like x² + 9x + 20...

Anyhow, here are some vids covering a simple and expanded lesson on place value and the names of numbers.



When you start out you can just do the numbers from one to 1 million, three at a time, and then the next day do the numbers smaller than 1. Use a three period lesson. Treat place value like vocabulary...you are just learning the names of numbers and the pattern is easy to discover.



I did it all at once for this student because this student was older. He had some questions about the decimal point and where the one-ths place went the way MOST kids do.



Now you can get this handled and understood in a few days...give them a little home work and I would bet on 2 days. [b]THEN YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ELSE.[/b]

I bet if you as an adult were forced to do the same thing over and over again and the subject matter was presented in a way you really didn't understand they be telling to you had ADHD or ADD and would try and pump you full of drugs too.

Place value should be easy. By the time you spend some time on this page you should be quite comfortable presenting these concepts to your students. Remember to break it up and add more meaning as you go. Very little kids only need to learn up to 1,000 to start. Then you can play games and ask questions: what does the 2 in 1,257 mean? Which is more in that number the 2 or the 5? Etc.

There's more place value for little kids on my website, Crewton Ramone's House of Math.