Learning how to say, read and write Big numbers
Reading numbers like this 830 150 753 is a challenge, so where do we start?
Well knowing place value helps. That is looking at the value of a digit and knowing what it is worth by the position in the number.
We have been having a lot of fun learning how to better understand place value. We have learnt the first four places – Thousand Hundred Ten One then we played a game using playing cards. In pairs each player would flip a card and place it in one of those positions. The aim was to make the highest number. The winner was the one who could win five times.
I love it when they explain their mathematical strategies while they are playing, it helps us with our thinking. I reckon sharing how you do work is very helpful to others and ourselves.
This was a great warm up place value activity, then it came to writing these big numbers. First thing we did was to make our own set of arrow cards. These were colour coded for each place value. It took a while to cut everything, but it was worth it.
Go team one
Love the concentration team five
Way to go team three great modelling for others
Once that job was done we could make lots of four digit numbers. So randomly choosing one of each colour, we made 4 digit numbers.
But that’s not all.. No, we learnt that there were three ways you could record a number. Check this out..
Anita has built the number 7762 with the cards she randomly chose, she can write it 3 ways
- Standard Form 7762
- Expanded Form 7000 + 700 + 60 + 2
- Written Form seven thousand seven hundred and sixty two
Look at them go..
Using the arrow cards made a lot of sense to us. We could clearly see where the numerals needed to go to make the standard form and when it came to expanding the number, it was easy to read. Once we could read it, it was easy to write what we said… but we had to check our spelling for accuracy.
We’re not experts yet, but we have a made a great start to becoming one.
Something to think about.
What did you think of the place value card game?
What could you do to try to win the game?
Is it better to go first or second?
How do you feel about place value after using the arrow cards?
What confuses you with big numbers?
What do you still need to learn?