When my own daughter was in fourth grade, her teacher hooked her with something she called Munchie Math. Her classroom was stocked with all the predictable manipulatives and resources, but food? Well, that was clearly the preferred tool of choice for these budding mathematicians. Suddenly, my math-loathing-kid was all about fractions and other fourth grade math mysteries. Armed with a cup of multi-colored Goldfish crackers and a Hershey chocolate bar, there wasn’t anything Haley couldn’t tackle.
Borrowing a strategy from her teacher’s playbook, I started looking at the snack aisle in a totally different way. Obviously base ten blocks are essential in teaching the concept of place value to first graders, but every once in a while mix it up. Thin pretzel sticks and mini marshmallows are inexpensive ways to have a little fun with math, and kids can easily see how they represent tens and ones.
Working with larger numbers?👇 A saltine or graham cracker can represent a value of one hundred. And when the math lesson is over, it’s snack time!
PLACE VALUE GAMES FOR 1ST GRADE
Even though food is a fun teaching treat, the cost can add up over time, so I recommend using Munchie Math lessons just once or twice a month.
Place value games for 1st grade kids are another way to bring life to lessons. My students LOVE whole group games like this one.👇 It’s a really fun and engaging way to practice the concepts we’ve been learning during math workshop. It takes just a few minutes and can either be done after a lesson or as a warm-up at the beginning of our math block.
Typically when we play this game, each child gets their own card. However, when the skill-learning is new, I pair up the students so they can support each other during the activity. One thing that makes this game particularly good is that the children really have to actively listen because they don’t know when their “turn” is going to come up. Focus is high during this activity because they’re waiting for their number to be called.
My kids also go nuts for memory card games, which are pretty easy to make. When I’m planning place value games for 1st grade, Concentration, Bingo, and War (which I now call Top It) are go-to game formats I usually look for. We work these games into many of our lessons throughout the year. For example, we have memory card games for place value, time, money, tens frames, addition facts, etc. And by using similar formats over and over, the kids become very familiar with the rules. This makes management so much easier!
PICTURE BOOKS FOR TEACHING PLACE VALUE
Angie Olson, from the Lucky Little Learners blog, has a blog post featuring picture books teachers can use to introduce place value. In her post, Books That Teach Place Value, she shares eleven different books. From Zero the Hero to One Hundred Ways to Get to 100, her list is a great way to integrate literacy and math.
If the time of year works out for you, one of my favorite stories that feels like a real classroom is How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara. In this blog post, Pumpkin Math and Science Activities for Kids, you can see sample pages of the book and student activities that provide hands-on work with place value.
PLACE VALUE WORKSHEETS
Munchie Math, games, and books are highly engaging, but there’s always a time for independent practice and assessment. Like me, you probably have a mandated math curriculum you’re using, but I often need a little extra. These student practice pages have given me a few more resources to grab when I need to plan intervention lessons or informal assessments.
I always like questions that really require kids to dig in and be strategic when solving problems. The math activities below👇 take a little longer, but I LOVE the conversations that take place when we’re sharing different strategies. Seeing and hearing examples of how everyone uses a variety of ideas to come to the same conclusions is a really powerful math (and life) skill.
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We love this BUNDLE of all sorts of math games, worksheets, and digital activities for first graders! It covers many math skills such as addition & subtraction, missing addends, doubles facts, geometry, place value, missing addends, time, and more!👇
Happy teaching!
