Cluster 1: Understand place value. (Major Cluster)Archived

This interactive Flash applet helps children learn grouping, tally marks, place value, addition, and subtraction. Students help the alien spaceship move cows into corrals by counting by 5s and 10s. They also can apply those grouping skills to practice adding and subtracting two-digit numbers with regrouping. Audio cues and prompts reinforce the user's actions and facilitate counting and the development of math language.

Type: Educational Software / Tool

A printable hundreds chart featuring a 10x10 table numbered 1 to 100. (found on Illuminations website under "Trading for Quarters")

Type: Educational Software / Tool

Students randomly pull five cards from a set of digit cards and use them to make the greatest and least three-digit numbers possible. They are also asked to use the greater than or less than symbols to compare the two numbers.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to compare two numbers used in a word problem and to write an inequality statement showing the relationship between the numbers.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to compare numbers and then use the greater than, less than, or equal to symbols to complete inequality statements.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to compare numbers with missing digits and explain their reasoning.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students use base ten blocks to model each of four numbers and then describe the number of hundreds, tens, and ones in each number.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to describe the number of hundreds, tens, and ones in four different three-digit numbers.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to write numbers given descriptions of the number of hundreds, tens, and ones each contains.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to compare ten tens to one hundred and justify their comparisons.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to count backward by ones, first from 10, and then from larger numbers within 1000. 

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to count by fives, starting at various numbers, up to 1000.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students write the expanded form of a number from hearing the word name of a number.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are shown three numbers in expanded form and asked to write the corresponding numeral.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to count by tens, starting at various numbers, up to 1000 and to count by hundreds up to 1000.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are asked to count by ones, starting at various numbers, within 1000.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students are presented with six numerals and are asked to read the numbers.

Type: Formative Assessment

Students write numerals that correspond to spoken number names.

Type: Formative Assessment

The major focus of this lesson is for all students to be able to practice and demonstrate how the place value of a digit determines its numeric value. The ongoing formative assessment, along with specific guiding questions and feedback from the teacher, creates an experience that is engaging and educational. This lesson includes a fun video, a hands on base ten block activity, and an academic game. This lessons allows the students to discover and practice place value strategies that will serve as foundational skills for future math strategies.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is an engaging lesson in comparing two three-digit numbers using the symbols <,>, and =. Students will be using Skittles and pretend their hand is a crocodile mouth.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a lesson about the power of grouping numbers into ones, tens, and hundreds. The story describes the terrible dilemma faced by Lady Di as she attempts to feed the large number of guests that arrive for King Arthur's birthday party. The knights attempt to help her count the guests by arranging the people in different ways until a final solution is found by using the power of ten and place value. The children are then given the opportunity to count people arriving from other lands by using place value blocks. Finally, the children make a number and have just a few more guests arrive from the land of Addington. They can then fill up their place value houses and watch as they must shift or regroup the people to make them fit into the proper houses.

Type: Lesson Plan

In the lesson, Base Ten Block Shuffle students will utilize critical thinking to solve problems with an engaging and hands-on approach working with modeling 3-digit numbers using base ten blocks.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will model three digit numbers on a place value chart using base ten blocks.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will research the effects of sugary drinks on their health.  They will interpret data on a variety of beverages presented in the form of bar graphs and decide which beverages should be included in school vending machines to ensure students have healthy drink options.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students will extend their base-ten understanding to hundreds and represent 3-digit numbers in a variety of ways, using 3-digits, words, base-ten blocks, drawings, and equations.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will demonstrate their understanding of how to read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten blocks and word form. Students will compose and decompose three-digit numbers in multiple ways using hundreds, tens, and ones.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students move from comparing three-digit numbers built with base ten blocks to comparing three-digit numbers based on their place value. Students will use the greater than, less than, or equal sign to compare their values.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson encompasses several activities for learning the place value of three-digit numbers. Students match cards with other students' various representations of the same number. Pairs of students use playing cards and determine the digits' place values. Students find a partner to query about place value after a musical interlude.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students use a skip-count chart and choral reading to assist them in recognizing and using patterns to skip count to 1000 by 10s and 100s.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students use a toy factory scenario to better understand three-digit numbers.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will demonstrate their understanding of how to read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten blocks and expanded form. Students will also explore decomposing 3-digit numbers in multiple ways.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will make their own twisty cups, manipulate them to display 3-digit numbers, and record the displayed standard form, word form, and expanded form.

Type: Lesson Plan

Written at a second grade level, in this MEA the students will use problem solving skills, two-digit addition, and knowledge of greater than and less than to rank order carnival games based on provided criteria.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In teams, students will make a decision on how to select the best crayons for a school supply store based on various crayon characteristics such as cost, transfer to paper, vibrancy of color, color residue, and breakage.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Children are challenged to create hurricane kits from a list of $5 supplies and a fixed budget. In a twist, students are asked to revise their kits to account for diverse families including families with young children, families with elderly adults, and families with pets. They are given an increased budget and a checklist for each type of kit.  The expectation is that students can determine which supplies would be useful in an emergency hurricane kit and that they can skip-count by 5’s to make sure they stay within their budgets.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students have been selected by the cafeteria manager to help rank healthy meal options that have been proposed to be added to the school cafeteria. The students will use information about the food and drink included in the meal, total calories, sodium content, calories from saturated fat, and calories from sugar to come up with a procedure for ranking the meal options. Then students will have to use or adapt their original procedures to include two more meal options in the rankings.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Although, chocolate sales in America have continued to grow, due to the increased awareness of childhood obesity, there is major concern about the nutritional value of chocolate candy bars. Chocolate Delight, a chocolate bar company, wants to improve its sales to elementary students by creating a healthy chocolate bar. They have tested 5 new recipes and need to determine which candy bar is best for children. The students will rank the recipes from best to worst based on the following criteria: healthiness, taste, and nut allergies and make a recommendation of the healthiest recipe to Chocolate Delight.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson puts a spin on comparing three-digit numbers! The students will work cooperatively to compare two three-digit numbers based on the hundreds, tens, and ones place values. The students are encouraged to verbally explain their logic during the game. This is a lesson that will engage your students and can last all week long!

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson helps teachers introduce the concept of comparing two numbers up to 1,000 using the terms Greater than, Less than, Equal to, and the symbols >, <, =.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use base-ten blocks, drawings, or place value charts to compare two 3-digit numbers Students will use the <,>, = symbols correctly when comparing numbers.

Type: Lesson Plan

This whole-class lesson will reinforce the concept of comparing two 3-digit numbers as well as provide practice for students to become comparing experts. Students will use playing cards to practice their skills.

Type: Lesson Plan

Help the Third Little Pig skip count to 1,000 bricks in groups of 5. (Note students are not expected to count from 0-1,000 by 5s, but this activity allows them to experience counting within a variety of contexts between 0 and 1,000.)

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn how to subtract three-digit subtraction problems using various subtraction strategies (expanded form and place value). These strategies help to build conceptual understanding, which will benefit in the development of their understanding of the standard algorithm.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will order the months of tornado activity in the United States from greatest to least for the Year 2009.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students use place value to compare two three-digit numbers and write the appropriate symbol >, =, <.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will compare whole numbers up to 1,000, use the appropriate symbol, and read the comparison correctly.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will be able to represent a 3-digit number with base-ten blocks, write in expanded form, and read the number.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will decompose numbers by place value and represent them using concrete and pictorial models.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is a different way of teaching place value, with a story that you can continue to use to also teach addition and subtraction to your second graders. In this lesson students will learn to represent numbers in different ways and understand that the three digits in a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn read and write numbers in expanded form with the dolphins in this interactive tutorial.

This is Part 2 in a two-part series. Click HERE to open Part 1.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn to read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten numerals with the dolphins!

This interactive tutorial is part 1 of a two-part series. Click HERE to open Part 2.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how to compare three-digit numbers using place value models, number lines and place value charts in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore the Base 10 place value system with 3-digit numbers in Bianca's Bubble Gum Factory with this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

After you try this knockout lesson idea, math misconceptions will be down for the count!

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

The purpose of this task if for students to gain a better understanding of <,=,> with the help of number sentences.

</,=,>

Type: Problem-Solving Task

The purpose of this task is to help students understand composing and decomposing ones, tens, and hundreds. This task is meant to be used in an instructional setting and would only be appropriate to use if students actually have base-ten blocks on hand.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

The purpose of this task is for students to use currency to help better understand place value.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

The purpose of this task is for students to relate addition and subtraction problems to money and to situations and goals related to saving money. This task is an instructional task that brings many aspects of the mathematical work that second graders will be doing together with an opportunity to learn about financial literacy concepts.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This tasks uses school supplies in a problem to help students gain a better understanding of place value.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

Students who are struggling to build an understanding of the relationship between digit placement and the value of the number may still need concrete manipulatives such as grid paper and Base Ten Blocks. As a classroom extension, after students have worked independently or in small groups to solve the problem, the teacher can ask students to share their numbers, until all six possibilities are listed. Then, independently or as a whole group, students can order the six numbers from smallest to largest (or largest to smallest).

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This task acts as a bridge between understanding place value and using strategies based on place value for addition and subtraction. Within the classroom context, this activity can be differentiated using numbers that are either simpler or more difficult to manipulate across tens and hundreds.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This task serves as a bridge between understanding place-value and using strategies based on place-value structure for addition. Place-value notation leaves a lot of information implicit. The way that the numbers are represented in this task makes this information explicit, which can help students transition to adding standard base-ten numerals.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

The point of this task is to emphasize the grouping structure of the base-ten number system, and in particular the crucial fact that 10 tens make 1 hundred. Second graders should have been given opportunities to work with objects and pictures that represent the grouping structure of the base-ten number system, which would help prepare them for doing this task.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

The purpose of this task is for students to gain a better understanding of 3-digit numbers and their place value.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

Students determine the number of hundreds, tens and ones that are necessary to write equations when some digits are provided. Student must, in some cases, decompose hundreds to tens and tens to ones. The order of the summands does not always correspond to the place value, making these problems less routine than they might seem at first glance.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This task requires students to compare numbers that are identified by word names and not just digits. The order of the numbers described in words are intentionally placed in a different order than their base-ten counterparts so that students need to think carefully about the value of the numbers. Some students might need to write the equivalent numeral as an intermediate step to solving the problem.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This is an instructional task related to deepening place-value concepts. The important piece of knowledge upon which students need to draw is that 10 tens is 1 hundred. So each sheet contains 100 stamps. If students do not recall this fact readily, one way to review it is to have them draw a strip of ten stamps on graph paper (so they don't have to draw all the individual stamps) and then draw ten strips that are side-by-side to represent a sheet and ask how many stamps there are in one sheet.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

It is important that students be asked to explain well beyond saying something like "She should choose the 8 because it is the biggest." They should be asked to think through the other possibilities and then draw on their ability to compare three digit numbers to complete the task. In the second part, students are presented with an incorrect statement supported by a correct one. It is worth pausing to ask students to carefully sort this through, since attending to reasoning that is partially true and partially false lends itself to critiquing the reasoning of others.

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This task asks students to explain how they know the list is complete. A systematic approach to listing the solutions is not required to meet the standard, but it's a nice way for students to explain how they found all the possible ways to make 124 using base-ten blocks

Type: Problem-Solving Task

This webpage contains instructions for several activities and games designed to develop students' understanding of place value while reinforcing addition and subtraction skills. Downloadable materials and suggestions for variations are included along with links to online games. This is the second of two pages of similar activities. The first, Place Value Activities, is cataloged separately.

Type: Teaching Idea

This webpage features 8 popcorn-themed math activities that can be used at various grade levels. Topics covered include volume, estimating, graphing, measuring, and place value.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this tutorial you will learn how to solve a word problem by creating a chart and adding the same number many times.

Type: Tutorial

You can watch a video that demonstrates how to convert numbers into words. Then, you can practice this skill by answering multiple choice questions.

Type: Tutorial

Students will view a video that uses place model values up to 1000, to teach the concept of how to convert numbers into words. After viewing the video students have an opportunity to practice this skill and receive immediate feedback on their responses.

Type: Tutorial

This 8-minute video demonstrates how to perform subtraction with regrouping. The presenter uses base-10 blocks to explain the rationale and to make a visual connection with the standard algorithm. The examples involve 2-digit and 3-digit numbers.

Type: Tutorial

Hacker has given you a challenge. He will run his number machine to create a number. Then you will get three numbers between one and nine. The challenge is to make a number that is larger than the one on Hacker's machine. Be careful though--Hacker will give you numbers that can't be bigger than his!

Type: Virtual Manipulative