Make a Flip Book for Place Value

Does your fourth grader read numbers up to the millions? Most of the time, kids this age know the basic concept of place value as long as it's with ones, tens, and hundreds.  But move higher than that, and they need a lot more practice.  As they become confident with numbers up to the millions, they'll feel more successful as math problem solvers, and they'll be more ready for fifth grade too.

You can help just by doing short games like scribbling a long number and challenging your fourth grader to read it aloud.   Here's a fun hands-on activity to get your child flipping through place value with ease!

• large shoe box (or cut cardboard: 6 x 12 inches)
• scissors
• construction paper (2 pieces of each color: red, orange, yellow, white, blue, green, purple)
• black marker
• lined paper
• ball yarn pencil hole puncher

What You Do:

Step 1:
Have your child review writing numbers by using a piece of lined paper and pencil to write the following numbers as you read them aloud:

• 450
• 4,508
• 68,215
• 798,012
• 1,982,545
• 3,786,901
• 8,098,654
• 6,312,855

After he is finished, check his answers to make sure they're written correctly. Remind him that the number "0" is called a "place holder." For example, without the number "0" at the end of problem #1, their answer would only be forty-five, not four hundred fifty. You may also check to see if he wrote his numbers using a comma after each group of 3 numbers, as in the number "4,508." This will help him to think about the number's place value, or how much it really represents, as he is writing.