Importance of Teaching Place Value
For the lesson during my math field today, the students start their day with addition problems. The emphasis today was on place value and making sure all students were saying how many tens or one hundreths place. When completing the problems, the teacher made sure the students said how many hundreths there would be for each problem. For example, the students had a problem where it was 310 + 42. The teacher simplified the problem by starting with the tens and ones place. Students then did 10 + 42 = 52, and the teacher asked them what place value was left over, which was the one hundreths place. The students then added 300 to the 52 they had already solved.
In class, we discussed the importance of place value when discussing addition algorithms. As we go through higher education, we see that there is less of an emphasis on identifying the place value. We don't have to go throught each place value. but move to mental math. In the second grade math class, the students still need to identify place values because they are still growing in their learning. The students need to identify place value to understand why addition works. To start, the students were using the base ten blocks to be able to conceptualize the moving parts. If there were ten ones then there would be one tens block added to that place value. Students need place values to understand the moving parts of the problem.
For the lesson during my math field today, the students start their day with addition problems. The emphasis today was on place value and making sure all students were saying how many tens or one hundreths place. When completing the problems, the teacher made sure the students said how many hundreths there would be for each problem. For example, the students had a problem where it was 310 + 42. The teacher simplified the problem by starting with the tens and ones place. Students then did 10 + 42 = 52, and the teacher asked them what place value was left over, which was the one hundreths place. The students then added 300 to the 52 they had already solved.
In class, we discussed the importance of place value when discussing addition algorithms. As we go through higher education, we see that there is less of an emphasis on identifying the place value. We don't have to go throught each place value. but move to mental math. In the second grade math class, the students still need to identify place values because they are still growing in their learning. The students need to identify place value to understand why addition works. To start, the students were using the base ten blocks to be able to conceptualize the moving parts. If there were ten ones then there would be one tens block added to that place value. Students need place values to understand the moving parts of the problem.