Positively Delicious Place Value

For the past few months, we have been practicing place value. Each morning when we do our calendar, we look at what day in school it is and then decide how many "tens and ones" the number has. We've been practicing it several different ways. One way is counting straws. Each day a student adds a straw for the day in school and when we get to a "ten" number, we make a bundle. Then we count the bundles. We have also been using place value blocks on our smart board to make the number a different way. Each day we also play mystery number. Everyone closes their eyes while one child comes up front and chooses a number. Then the student chooses someone to tell what the number is and they not only have to figure out the missing number, but also have to tell us how many tens and ones the number has. In an effort to do something fun and different, I incorporated place value into our Munchie Math this week. The children were given honeycomb cereal and cheerios. First, I had them decide which should be the tens and which should be the ones. They all agreed that the honeycombs were bigger so they would obviously be the tens!

We had a few 5th grade helpers in class today and I let them call out numbers to the children. The children first had to write the number and then make it using their cereal. This was a fun and yummy way to practice place value!