Howdy All!!!
Place value is always a tricky math concept to teach little ones.  We worked very hard on this objective this week.  The kids already had a sense of what it was all about because we have included a "place value" piece during calendar time every morning.  (You know the whole bundling straws thing!) But to bring it home I created giant pick up sticks using pieces of wood and a paint bucket.  On one side of the stick I simply drew 10 black dots.  On the other side I drew one red dot.  When the sticks are dropped we look at the "up" side and sort,  the tens together and the ones together.  We can then easily see the value of each place. 
Writing down the value of each place was an important component.

Hello Everyone!
Before I share my newly updated Candy Corn Connection math unit, I want to share my favorite activity from this past week.  In social studies we were learning about the differences in family lives depending on where you live.  We read a lot of books on different homes, etc. from around the world. We compared the lives of those families to ours.  As a culminating activity, the kids made a paper bag house and wrote little love notes to put inside.  They turned out so sweet!

Hello Everyone!!
Quick post today! I think fall might actually be in the air...I do see a few leaves falling, even though the temps are not.  Hope it's cooling down a bit for you all. This season is a favorite for so many people and it so inspirational!  We are beginning a two week unit on place value on Monday, so I created a fun little fall inspired unit.  Place value is such an important objective that all kids should grasp as it leads to deeper thinking about numbers and mathematical principles.  Place value is the basis of our entire number system. A place value system is one in which the position of a digit in a number determines its value. In the standard system, called base ten, each place represents ten times the value of the place to its right. You can think of this as making groups of ten of the smaller unit and combining them to make a new unit.Ten ones make up one of the next larger unit, tens. Ten of those units make up one of the next larger unit, hundreds. Of course this pattern continues for greater values (ten hundreds = one thousand, ten thousands = one ten thousand, etc.), and lesser, decimal values (ten tenths = one one, ten hundredths = one tenth, etc.).