Counting Help

[Paige]

I need help teaching my DD. I'm posting here instead of special needs to hopefully get more ideas. She's 8 and for some reason cannot grasp place value and how to count around place value changes. By this, I mean, she gets tripped up with numbers before and after 0s once we get past 99. But, honestly, even counting down from 30 might trip her up on a rough day. I've been working on this for years and making very little progress. She does very well at computations that don't require counting up or down. She can regroup like a pro on paper. She can multiply and divide with small numbers. I don't feel like we can keep moving on until she really gets the pattern of base 10, however. I have tried in the past to stop and solidify this concept, but I felt she was getting too frustrated and it was not making any difference, and she asked to move on to regular math.

 

We use an abacus every day. We use cuisenaire rods. We've used number charts. All of those help her do individual problems if I guide her and talk her through it, but none of them have made any difference in how she does the next day. She used to refuse to play any games, but now she has started to enjoy them, so I'm interested in games, techniques, manipulatives, words to use to explain it to her, I'll try anything....help!

[Ellie]

What about the Wonder Number system? Just playing the basic games on it can be very helpful, but there are also lesson plans for more "official" learning.

[Paige]

What about the Wonder Number system? Just playing the basic games on it can be very helpful, but there are also lesson plans for more "official" learning.

 

Thank you! That looks wonderful!

[Clear Creek]

The thing that finally made place value click for my 8yo is MUS's Decimal Street. Have you heard of it or tried it? You don't have to buy MUS Alpha in order to use it; the instructions are pretty simple. Just get a large piece of paper and draw a square around 9 of the c-rod unit pieces and draw a roof on it to make a house. To the left of that draw a rectangle around nine of the c-rod tens pieces and draw a roof on it to make it a mansion. To the left of that draw a square around a 100 flat (these just have to be stacked nine high) and draw turrets on the top to make it a castle. Have her practice building numbers...you give her a number, and she has to put the appropriate number of c-rods in each "house." It quickly becomes clear to the child that only nine of the pieces fit in each house before it becomes a larger piece and lives in the house next door to it, where it fits. Once she gets proficient at building numbers, have her write down a number and you build it, then she has to say whether or not you are correct. The next game is a tornado...it comes through Decimal Street and scatters all the blocks around haphazardly. She has to arrange them in their house and write down what the number was supposed to be. Then to make it more difficult, she has to write down a number, then scatter the correct pieces all over Decimal street and I get to put them in their proper houses and say the correct number, which she compares to what she wrote down originally.