Place Value Games for homeschoolers

Roll-aPlace-Value (Game)

Place Value is a critical, but difficult concept for young children to grasp unless they are provided a lot of practice. Math practice in the form of worksheets can be the doldrums for most kids. The best way to provide math practice is through manipulatives and gamification!

Gamification (the strategy of turning every day learning into games) is especially helpful for math concepts. Who doesn’t love playing games?

The feeling of accomplishment, beating an opponent or improving a previous score keep you voluntarily coming back for more. Gamification can do wonders for engagement. That’s why I use math games to teach Place Value, and this one is a favorite in our homeschool.

My kiddos work in a math curriculum every day (we use Saxon), but we frequently start each day with about ten minutes of a math game, in addition to our math curriculum. It’s a great way to build number sense, which is familiarity with numbers and their interactions with one another. It’s also a great way to work on specific concepts they struggle with, without it feeling like the doldrums.

 

What Is Place Value And Why Is It Important?

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 marshmallows 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 a lot to take in!

Number correspondence is pretty concrete and not too difficult to grasp. 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 this game, Place Value Earthquake, and all of my other Place Value games come in.

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 Play Roll-A-Place-Value

Your child will need a die (we use ten-sided dice because they contain numbers 0-9, where 6-sided dice only contain the numbers 1-6, but you could use 6-sided dice if that’s all you have), a pencil, and the worksheet included in the free printable. The boxed number is the starting number. Your child will roll the die, then add the corresponding number the starting number, and write that number on the line.

No regrouping is necessary, so this worksheet is a great place to start when learning place value.

This game is great for helping your child to see that you can easily add one in any place, and how the value changes from place to place. This worksheet only goes up to 4 places, but you can make your own worksheet, as many places as you’d like, using the blank master also included in the free printable. You could also have your child subtract the values instead of adding them.

 

 

Don’t forget to print your FREE Roll-A-Place-Value game!


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Pin this fun place value game for later!

 

 

 

 
 

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One Comment

  1. Would be cool to be able to actually access the resources

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