Today I'm linking up with K's Classroom Kreations and Theresa's Teaching Tidbits for Math Tip Monday. This post is all about place value in the primary grades!
Place value is a huge part of math in 2nd grade. I explicitly teach it through routines, although it does come up during adding and subtracting numbers. I know some teachers who teach lessons on place value, but for me it has always made more sense to teach it as a routine and build more upon it as the year goes on. The routine that I use is called Today's Number.
The math curriculum we use has a routine called Today's Number, which gives a number and the students come up with various ways to make the given number. They can write equations, draw representations using whatever they want (cubes, tally marks, base 10, etc), use money, etc. I think this is a great routine to have students create multiple representations of a number, but it almost seems like the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer". The higher students come up with a million ways to make the number, and the struggling students sit there confused because they don't know where to start.
In comes... the anchor chart! I have used several different forms of this anchor chart to give students a starting point and it makes a big difference. It gives the kids who need a place to start just that, and the kiddos who don't get a push just in case they need it. I've found it covers the models they were already using anyway, so it really just organizes their work so they I can read it.
I focus on more parts of this than others. It changes throughout the year, and it goes along with the models that we are using when we add or subtract numbers. At the beginning of the year, we add using tally marks because I cannot stand seeing students draw circles or unorganized groups of lines it makes me crazy so I pay particular attention to tally marks. As we get into larger numbers, tally marks are no longer practical so I try to wean them off of tally marks and start encouraging them to use base ten models. As we get closer to regrouping, I focus on breaking apart numbers and writing them in expanded form to get students more comfortable with the idea of "carrying".
Check out these blogs for other ways to teach place value in primary grades:
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