About Units and Tens Place
Before a child can work with place value abstractly, they need to see it. This game shows a quantity as blocks grouped into tens with some left over, and asks the child to write down how many tens and how many ones. It is the same idea as the place value game but anchored to something countable, which is where the understanding has to start.
What this game teaches
- Grouping a quantity into tens and leftover ones
- Writing a two-digit number from its tens and ones parts
- Understanding that 4 tens and 7 ones is 47, not 4 and 7
- Counting in tens fluently
- Connecting a physical quantity to its written numeral
How to play
- A set of blocks appears, bundled into groups of ten with some loose.
- Count the bundles and enter the number of tens.
- Count the loose blocks and enter the number of ones.
- Ten questions complete a level, across thirty levels of increasing size.
Before you start
A child should be able to count to twenty and to count in tens. Nothing else is assumed - this is often the first place-value activity a child meets.
For teachers
The bundled representation is the same one used in most Class 1 and 2 textbooks, so this transfers directly. If a child writes 407 for four tens and seven ones, that is the classic misconception and worth catching here where it is cheap to correct.
For parents
Do the same thing with real objects - matchsticks, buttons, anything countable in bundles of ten. Children who have physically bundled ten things and counted the bundles find the screen version obvious rather than mysterious.
Related games
- Bead Counting — Class 1-2
- Time Recognition Game — Class 2-5
- Cross Addition Puzzle — Class 3-6