Place Value Puzzles

We’ve been working on place value this week (and decomposing/composing numbers) using base ten materials.

I had various centers set up around the room so that I could work with a small group of students on problem solving.

One of the centers was technology based where they played this cute game called Fruit Shoot:

I had my students use the easy level for the most part but there were a couple students who were able to do medium.  A set of base ten will appear on the screen with floating fruit and students have to match the number represented by base ten to the fruit with the same number on it:

Another center was my place value base ten puzzles:

I cut out all of the puzzle pieces (they goes up to 50) and mixed them all up in a pile on the floor. Students had to race to see who could find the most matches.

I purposely made all of the pieces the same shape so that I could measure students understanding of the concept rather than just the ability to match puzzle pieces.

I printed out the puzzles pieces on cardstock and laminated them for long term use. I definitely plan to use that as a center next year. They had a lot of fun with it. They were even making up their own games to use with the puzzle pieces once they had made all of the matches.

And I’m linking up with Teachingmomster for Math Madness Wednesdays! Check out her blog for more math puzzle ideas!