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Category: Place Value

Blog Header: Don't Introduce Place Value Like This

Introducing Place Value to 1st and 2nd Graders

It’s a common activity used for introducing place value. You give your students a pile of crackers, pretzel sticks and chocolate chips. You tell your students that the crackers are the hundreds, pretzel sticks are the tens and chocolate chips are the ones. You and your students take turns building

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FREE Printable Math Manipulatives

Why Use Printable Math Manipulatives?  Using a research-based CRA progression your students will move from concrete tools to drawings and representational models and will ultimately be proficient with abstract equations and ideas. Without manipulatives in the hands of our students we are missing the first and arguably most critical step!

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Which is the BEST Hands-On Tool for Teaching Decimals?

  5th-grade teachers are set with a difficult task. Your students previously spent the majority of their time working with whole numbers in the base ten system. Now, you are supporting your students to build numbers that may be very difficult to model and conceptualize. Thinking CRA is helpful but what

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How to Choose the Right Place Value Manipulatives

I recently saw a post on social media with a fun place value activity. The teacher was using saltine crackers as a hundred, thin pretzel rods as a ten and marshmallows as ones. Students would use these materials to build a variety of three-digit numbers. Fun! In general, I don’t

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3 St. Patrick’s Day Math Crafts

I always know that spring is right around the corner when St. Patrick’s Day hits. Meet your students and their energy on his holiday with a fun activity that will keep them learning.  Try one of these 3 St. Patrick’s Day math crafts this upcoming holiday season! St. Patrick’s Day

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3 Valentine’s Day Math Crafts

Valentine’s Day in the classroom has a different energy than a typical school day. Meet your students and their energy with a fun and novel math activity that keeps them learning. Try one of these 3 Valentine’s Day math crafts this upcoming holiday! Valentine’s Day Love Bug Place Value Math

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How To Teach Rounding When It Feels Like a Struggle

If your grade level has standards around rounding numbers then you have thought long and hard about how to teach rounding to students who are struggling with math. There are two main schools of thought here.  Teach the students HOW to round. This may include a rhyme, an anchor chart,

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Low-Prep High Value Place Value Games

Place value comes up every year throughout elementary school. But what makes it so difficult for our students to understand and what can we do to make place value instruction more clear for our most struggling students. Quick and simple place value games can help your students to build understanding

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Adding and Subtracting Ten Mentally

For some first grade students, adding and subtracting ten to a given number comes naturally. They know that 23 has 2 tens and 3 ones so, naturally adding another ten gives the answer of 33! For other students, this skill isn’t so intuitive. You may have taught the skill using

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