Place Value Lesson Plan

A Fun Place Value Activity

Recently, Flocabulary debuted a new video for the Place Value song. The characters in the video are having such a great time learning place value, so why shouldn’t your students?

Place value is often illustrated with blocks or charts. Set those aside for a moment and have your students actively involved in this activity.

Place Value Lesson Plan

Objective: Students will identify proper place value of numbers.

1. Have students watch Flocabulary’s Place Value video and click on the info boxes in the lyrics to learn more.

2. Draw large columns on your chalkboard or whiteboard, labeling them hundreds, tens, ones. Depending on what your students are studying, add higher or lower place values.

3. Hand out large cards with numbers 0-9 to students. Only ten students will be able to go at a time.

4. Tell your students a number. Students with the corresponding number should come to the board and stand under the appropriate column. For example, announce the number 321. Students with the cards 3, 2 and 1 will walk up and arrange themselves accordingly.

5. You can also do the reverse of step four and call numbers up to different places, similar to the song lyrics. For example, ask students: “You could have a five in the hundreds place, a nine in the tens place, and a three in the ones’ place. What number is that?”

5. Have students change places, and ask the class what the new number is. You can also integrate different operations. For example, you could ask the students what will change if you added 3 tens, or subtracted 5 ones, and so on. Every time numbers are moved, the class should announce the new number. To ensure that every student gets a turn, students returning to their desk should hand off their number card to a classmate who hasn’t gone yet.