Homeschool World Forum

At our house, we're currently working on place value/base 10. My son is generally very gifted in math, but we seem to have tripped up on this concept. Does anyone have any ideas for teaching the place value concept to a 6 year old kinesthetic/visual learner?

Thanks in advance!

You probably want to use manipulatives - squares for 1's, lines of 10 squares for 10's, blocks of 10x10 squares for 100's. It's fairly easy to show visually how places work.

IME, the more different physical objects used, the better. Coins work sometimes to some degree, and I like to use Lego bricks to make "towers of 10." And for up to 20, fingers and toes are helpful, too. (40 or more if you have a parent and child or more than one child.)

Also, use all the different math "languages": written words, written numerals, spoken words, pictures, physical objects, fingers and toes, music, etc.

Ramona

For my daughter I used graph paper. I cut out strips of 10 squares, and then individual squares for ones. When we got to hundreds I added 100 blocks. I would show her first how it broke down, for ex. 15 would be 1 strip of ten and 5 one squares.

Another idea I seen after my daughter had already learned it, but I thought was great, was taking popsicle sticks and glueing 10 beans (beads, whatever you have small enough to fit) to each stick and using them to represent 10's and then using individual beans for ones.

Graph paper is really really handy. I also used it to teach rote counting by cutting out a hundred block and numbering 1-100 and then highlighting 2's on one, 3's on one, 5's, etc. Then I would have her put beads on the highlighted numbers counting as she went. I would then have her look at the pattern it created. Eventually I gave her sheets without highlighted numbers and had her place the beads. It worked great! You could also use it to show even/odd numbers.

Homeschooling on a tight budget has made me come up with some crafty ways to invent manipulatives.