Math Vocabulary Spotlight: PLACE VALUE

Place value is defined as the value of a digit is determined by its position in a number relative to the one's (or units) place. An important digit in place value is the number 0 and recognising that it can act as placeholder for an amount. 

For example, in the number 924, the 4 represents 4 ones, the 2 represent 2 tens, and the 9 represents 9 hundreds.

Why is place value important?

Understanding place value is closely linked to partitioning and helps kids:

• Read and write numbers correctly.
• Understand how numbers work (for example, understanding why 90 is bigger than 9).
• Do operations like adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing.
• Estimate and mentally calculate more easily.

You can also ask your child these questions when talking about numbers:

• How many ones in the number ___
• How many tens in the number ___
• How many hundreds in the number ___

This is a picture of what MAB blocks look like. We use these in class to support our learning.