My favorite teacher in elementary was Mrs. E. She was my first grade teacher. You may be surprised as to what made me like her class well above the rest. It wasn't snack time, nap time, or extra play time. It wasn't stickers or prizes. OK, you got me...it was the PLACE VALUE BLOCKS. Yep, I said it. I loved playing with those place value blocks more than anything. It was more than the fact that I could get them figured out before anybody else. I'm sure the sense of pride helped my liking, but I think it was the overall experience of using the blocks to solve math problems that I enjoyed the most.Place value blocks are an excellent way to differentiate instruction to suit our students' specific types of learning. For the most part, I'm a visual/spatial learner, so the blocks worked well for me. However, there are different ways to use the blocks to tailor the instruction to suit the other models as well.
Here is a video of base ten blocks in action! The video will also explain how to eplain the blocks to the students as well as what to do when they don't quite understand.
Place value blocks, also known as base ten blocks, can be used for so many different things! Here is a link to a site that has ideas for learning place value as well as basic algorithms. We have to teach the basics before we can go wild, right? Why not make it fun?Base Ten Blocks
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