Practice with Place Value

I made this new math game for Hunter, which he calls the "sliding game". I got the idea after reading this really awesome Montessori book and introduced it to Hunter a few days ago.

You would think I was giving the kid candy. Seriously.

I don't think he has ever been this enthused about a math game before. And that is saying a lot.

He keeps bringing it down a couple times a day and playing it on his own. I'm not sure if it's the whole "sliding" aspect that he finds so interesting, or whatever fascination about the numeration of it all, or what, but he really likes it.

Basically I just made a bunch of cards with the numerals for ones (1-9), tens (10-90), and hundreds (100-900). In each numeral card, the ones are green, tens are blue, and hundreds are red (so a 100 card would have a red 1, then a blue 0, then a green 0). These colors correspond to the manipulatives we have.

He lays out the cards (pictured) and then picks a quantity (the manipulatives) and matching numerals. So if he chose eight hundreds, three tens, and five ones, he would get the card that matched each of those and lay it next to the quantity (800, 30, and 5).

Then the magic part? Slide them all together. And viola! You have 835.

(It's funny the things that amuse kids, isn't it?)

Then he reads the creation he just made, and writes it down.

There are also a number of other ways to play this game. The reverse is a basic one, of choosing a numeral and then getting the matching quantity. Or using it for arithmetic and the concept of carrying over, etc. (when you get ten tens, you trade it in for one hundred, for example). It is also a great reinforcer of the concepts of place value and zero as a place holder, which are the main reasons I intended it for.

But, he likes it and is having fun, and we're both excited about that.

"It shall have the two shoulderpieces thereof joined at the two edges thereof; and so it shall be joined together." 

Exodus 28:7

Hunter is 4 years, 8 months old