Exploring Place Value

We have been working on the concept of place value this week, exploring it through many different games (place value Bingo, anyone?) and hands-on activities. You'll see a lot of Base-10 blocks being used here. Note the involved structures in the last few pictures - these were part of this week's "Math Adventure," where students imagined we were stranded on a tropical island and had to build structures to live in, then figured out the value of their structure. We decided to build fancy houses like the ones the citizens of Krakatoa built in the book we are currently reading, "Twenty-One Balloons" - they built replicas of Versailles, Mount Vernon, and a Chinese pagoda. Our versions had formal gardens, swimming pools, hot tubs, and matchbox car garages, and the figuring went into the 10,000s! Things got a little loud, but everyone had fun and a lot of very involved mathematical thinking went on.