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Place Value Building Blocks

October 2, 2015 by Nadia van Zyl 11 Comments

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Teach place value with place value building blocks! A hands-on maths activity that is effective and fun too!

Place value building blocks

Our Grade 2’s are learning about place value at the moment. For some of them, the concept is quite hard. This hands-on approach with building blocks helps to make the concept “stick” and it is fun too!


You only need big building blocks and a dry-erase marker. Each block represents a place: ones(units), tens, hundreds or thousands.

Building blocks for learning


Simply write the numbers on the blocks with the dry-erase/whiteboard marker. The ones go on the smallest block, then work your way up to the 4 blocks (thousands).

Use the blocks to explain how the biggest number must be at the bottom of the stack, building up to the smallest unit, otherwise your “tower” will be unstable.

Unstable tower


Explain how to expand a number using the stacking method. Also, use the blocks to show the break-up/split method to reinforce the concept.

place value expanding and break-up/split method


“Playing” with blocks helps a student to physically see and experience place value. This is an important step before one can expect them to understand the concept on paper. Hands-on learning at its best!

After playing with blocks(3D),  go on to 2D number cards(Get printables here). Do the same activity with the cards now.

When the students are comfortable with the cards, then only one could move on to paperwork.

Make learning concrete(hands-on) to help students to understand a concept easier. It makes learning fun too!

place value building blocks

Have fun teaching place value using building blocks!



Some more hands-on learning ideas:

Word Family Learning with Magnetic ABC’s

Plant-a-Word Spelling Activity
Ordering Numbers Fishing Game
If you like this activity you have to check out this awesome book called ABC’s and 123’s with 40+ hands-on activities to work on letter, number and shape skills!
Buy Now

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Filed Under: default, Kids Activities & Crafts, Teach me Literacy/Numeracy Tagged With: blocks, learning, place value

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Comments

  1. Bethany says

    October 6, 2015 at 10:22 pm

    I love this! What a great visual to help kids see it and understand! I’m sharing now! 🙂

    Reply
    • Nadia van Zyl says

      October 8, 2015 at 7:59 am

      Thank you geek mama!

      Reply

Trackbacks

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    December 31, 2015 at 5:42 pm

    […] If I had to pick a post that did very well in the month it was published, it has to be Learning Place Value with Building Blocks. Simply because it is brilliant, and helped a lot of students to understand the concept better! My […]

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    January 14, 2016 at 5:04 pm

    […] Learn Place Value with Building Blocks. Source from here […]

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  3. Why We Need More Kinesthetic Teaching Methods in Elementary Classrooms | says:
    March 23, 2016 at 1:47 am

    […] a hands-on activity at their desk to do, like this lesson involving subtraction with play-doh or this lesson that uses plastic blocks to teach place value. As long as the idea is carried out in a physical […]

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Hi! I'm Nadia! A former teacher and now a mommy of two, who loves to be creative and share easy activities you can do at home with your kids too! Read More…

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