In this activity, students explore number decomposition and the powers of two. They play a number guessing game, and by the presence or absence of the secret number on each of six cards, the number can be found. An applet has the computer play the trick with the learner. The Teachers' Notes page offers rationale, suggestions for implementation, discussion questions, and ideas for support and extension.

This task gives children an opportunity to subtract a three-digit number including a zero that requires regrouping. The solutions show how students can solve this problem before they have learned the traditional algorithm.

This word problems helps students learn to build the biggest three-digit number given any three numbers between 0 and 9 to use as digits.

This task is for students who know how to use base 10 blocks.

Use these Venn diagrams to support student learning of ordering rational numbers with a focus on integers and decimals. Could be extended to numbers written in scientific notation.

Students practice rounding and place value as they work to complete these Venn diagrams.

This lesson will allow students to explore building numbers 10-19 with tens and ones on a virtual math manipulative website, then paste their models in a Google Slides assignment. Image credit: Britta Nunley, created using a template in Canva

This simple game with 5 variations develops place value understanding and strategic thinking. It is played on paper with a 6- or 9-sided die (printable pdf game sheet included). Two players take turns rolling a die and placing the resulting number in one of their four cells, representing the places of a 4-digit number. In the basic version the player who creates the larger number wins. Variations include aiming for the smaller number or a predetermined target number, using a decimal point, placing numbers in an opponent's cells, and several scoring options. Teachers' Notes include suggestions for introducing the game, support suggestions, and a link to a more challenging extension (Dicey Operations, cataloged separately).

The author of this one-page article discusses the importance of developing a "sense of ten" as a foundation for place value and mental calculations. She suggests teaching strategies using ten-frames to promote this sense, including instructions for simple games. The article includes a list of references and a link to a related article, "Developing Early Number Sense" (cataloged separately).

This task acts as a bridge between understanding place value and using strategies based on place value for addition and subtraction.

Open Middle tasks provide opportunities for student to approach a mathematical task using different strategies and representations. They can be used as a warm-up/closing activity, as a formative assessment, or to facilitate discourse and discussion and get insite into student thinking and problem solving. These tasks provide a great opportunity for student to engage with the Standards for Mathematical Practice.

In this ordering task each number has at most 3 digits so that students have the opportunity to think about how digit placement affects the size of the number.

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.

This is a Nearpod lesson.
In this warm-up lesson students practice identifying the place value and value of digits. They also write numbers. This lesson is most appropriate for 3rd grade students. The lesson takes approximately 20 minutes of class time to complete. By the end of this warm-up lesson, students will be able to read numbers in expanded and word form using place value. They will also be able to write numbers using place value and identify the place value of digits in numbers. This warm-up lesson features work in pairs to help students identify place value. Working with a partner, students identify place values and write numbers. Students review different numbers and demonstrate their understanding of digits in different place values. They read a description of a number based on its place values, and they write the corresponding number. Students also look at the expanded form, as well as the word form, and write the number on the line. The lesson includes a quiz on place value in which students must demonstrate their fluency with expanded form, word form, numerical form, and place value. (Description written by Nearpod)

This task serves as a bridge between understanding place-value and using strategies based on place-value structure for addition.

This article talks about the origins of our number system and the important roles zero plays in it. The author informs the reader that the early number systems of the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Romans and Greeks were developed for counting but not for calculations. Not until we had a base ten number system with place value and a symbol for zero did our number system become useful.

The focus of the Ten Tens is a Hundred intervention is to help students be efficient when counting large numbers of objects. It has students bundle straws or stirrers to make groups of ten and then groups of a hundred.

The focus of Three-Digit Number Recognition intervention is naming three-digit numbers that are modeled with base ten blocks. It also includes naming three-digit numbers from base ten blocks which are presented in random order. For example: 5 tens, 2 ones, and 4 hundreds.

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.