Place Value Puzzles

Our standard routine is to start our homeschool at about 9 am weekday mornings with what we call ‘Morning Time’. Morning time is generally either 15-30 minutes of math games or a read aloud or a hands-on experiment or something. Those things are usually exciting enough to bring my kids running to school cheerfully. But sometimes they aren’t.

Sometimes school is just boring. Sometimes the outdoors beckon. Sometimes it’s February. Sometimes new library books sing their siren song too loudly.

Sometimes you just need a break from the same old every day stuff, right?

That’s where Place Value Puzzles come in!

You can bet your booties that your kiddos will be learning while they assemble these place value puzzles, but it won’t require any coaxing or cajoling on your part. That’s the beauty of math games!

 

What Is Place Value?

Place value is an incredibly profound math concept. It is simply the numerical value a digit has by virtue of its position in a number.

As simple as it is, it can be a very challenging concept for young minds to grasp. One minute you’re teaching your child that the symbol 3, the word three and three matchbox cars all meant the same thing. And the next minute you’re telling him that 3 in the one’s place means 3, but three in the ten’s place means 30 while 3 in the hundred’s place means 300.

That’s difficult to grasp!

Number correspondence is pretty concrete. But the concept of place value can feel abstract. It’s your job as the educator to present it in a more concrete way, and that’s where these Place Value Puzzles and all of my other Place Value games come in.

 

Why Teach Place Value?

The reason the concept of Place Value is so critical is that it’s the foundation of arithmetic, which is the foundation all other math concepts are built on. Kids who don’t understand place value will struggle with every other math concept going forward. They’ll live in the dark place of relying on procedures and algorithms instead of being able to truly understand and apply concepts.

 

How To Use These Place Value Puzzles

These place value puzzles are pretty self explanatory. The free printable includes twenty puzzles, each with four pieces. The pieces include the numbers in standard form, word form, expanded form and base-ten form to really help your child make the necessary connections.

Understanding and being able to connect the different forms builds number sense and lays a good foundation for further math concepts, like fractions and decimals. Number sense is a familiarity with numbers that enables kids to understand math conceptually.

I print them on cardstock and laminate them before cutting them out to eliminate any overlap around the edges. That also makes them very durable and nice and heavy for easy use.

 

Concepts Explored With These Place Value Puzzles:

• standard from
• expanded form
• word form
• base-ten form
• place value

 

Don’t forget to grab your FREE Place Value Puzzles!

 

 

 

Pin this fun place value game for later!