Activities & Days Out / 13 September, 2023 / Nanny Anita

Place Value Aid

I still have very vivid memories of learning how to do maths with place values. I remember having to write those initials for hundreds, tens, and units at the top of all my maths problems. Although a lot of how maths is taught has changed over the years, they do still use place values. YC and EC still have problems sometimes trying to break numbers down to write. EC is getting much better, but YC still finds it all rather confusing at times. I don’t blame her, it is a hard concept, and I think as adults, we sometimes forget that. Over the summer I made this place value aid to help her when she is stuck.

Make sure you follow my maths board on Pinterest for more ideas, and don’t forget to save the pin for later.

You will need:

• Paper
• Pen
• Scissors

Making the place value aid is very simple. Simply cut three strips of paper. One for hundreds, one for tens, and one for units. You could do another for thousands if you so wish. If your little one hasn’t moved onto dealing with larger numbers then simply do strips for tens and units.

On each of the strips of paper write the numbers 0-9.

Cut a slightly bigger piece of paper to house the sliders. Make two parallel horizontal slits along the base.

Weave the place value strips through the slits that you have made so that they slide up and down.

How to use the Place Value Aid

There are a few ways that you could use this:

Firstly you could say out a number like 27 and then they have to move slides up and down to make the number. Or you could ask the question how many tens are there in a certain number. During the summer holiday I used this technique with YC.

Or they could use it as an aid while doing other maths problems. For example if they are doing addition and they can’t figure out how the final number should look.

We have used it a couple of times over the summer, but I think it will now become a permanent fixture for maths homework.

For other maths homework aids check out my times tables lacing post.

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