Examples of what pupils should know and be able to do
Probing questions
Which numbers are easiest to write down? Which do you have to think about?
When ordering a set of numbers, what do you look for first?
How do you find the smallest number/the largest number? What clues do you use?
What do you do when the numbers you are ordering have the same hundreds digit/tens digit?
Can you explain to me what you would do to order 384, 356 and 401?
What if pupils find this a barrier?
Place value cards are useful to practise the concepts with pupils:
- Use digit cards to show me 364. What does the 3 represent? Remove the 4. What number have you got now? What does the 3 represent now? Why is it different from before?
- Use digit cards in pairs or threes (then you can have numbers with repeated digits!) to make different numbers.
Use a guessing game to guess mystery numbers between 1 and 1000, using 'higher' and 'lower'.
Give pupils a matching activity with common misconceptions, e.g.:
- three hundred and five;
- three hundred and fifty;
- 3005, 305, 350, 30,050.
Place Value ITP - Zip file (458Kb) will help pupils to see the value of each digit.