Place Value Games for Kids: Five Games, and How to Tell Which One You Need

What place value asks for, grade by grade

Reading the standards myself saved me a lot of guessing, because they build in a clear order, and that order tells you where to start. Kindergarten starts it by asking children to “Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones”, and to record what they did with a drawing or an equation, the standard’s own example being “18 = 10 + 8.” All a child is finding out at this stage is that a teen number is a ten with some left over.

First grade names it. Children are asked to “Understand that the two digits of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones”, to “Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits, recording the results of comparisons with the symbols >, =, and <”, and to do the one I treat as the real test of the year: given a two-digit number, “mentally find 10 more or 10 less than the number, without having to count.” That last clause is the part I pay attention to, because a child who counts up in ones gets the answer without having used place value at all.

Second grade adds the hundreds column and gets specific about it. The standard asks children to “Understand that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones”, with its own example that “706 equals 7 hundreds, 0 tens, and 6 ones”, and it treats a hundred as “a bundle of ten tens.” The same year asks them to “Read and write numbers to 1000 using base-ten numerals, number names, and expanded form”, to compare three-digit numbers with the same three symbols, and to “Mentally add 10 or 100 to a given number 100-900.” The example with the zero in it is the one I would not skip past, because a zero holding a column open is the part I spend the longest explaining.

From there the standards use place value to do other work. Third grade applies it “to round whole numbers to the nearest 10 or 100.” Fourth grade states the rule that was quietly true all along: “Recognize that in a multi-digit whole number, a digit in one place represents ten times what it represents in the place to its right”, with the example that “700 ÷ 70 = 10.” If a ten-year-old is struggling with long division or decimals, my first guess is that this sentence never landed.

The questions that show which part is missing

I ask these while we are doing something else, so it does not feel like a test. What I listen for is whether the answer comes straight out or has to be worked out, which tells me more than whether it was right.

Five games, one per part

I have never printed anything for any of these. What you need is a deck of cards with the face cards taken out, a handful of straws or dry pasta, and some rubber bands. Aces count as one.

Bundle it up, for tens and ones

Pour out a pile of straws and race to count them. Your child will go in ones the first time, and losing to you is the useful part, because the way you won was bundling. Then do it together: every ten straws gets a rubber band round it, and the answer is read off as so many bundles and so many loose. For a younger child I stay on the teen numbers for a week, which is exactly what kindergarten asks for, and let them write what they made the way the standard does, as a ten and some ones. The reason I like straws better than any bought equipment is that your child makes the ten with their own hands and can pull it apart again.

Say it the long way, for expanded form

Deal three cards each and lay them out as a three-digit number. Before anyone scores, you both have to say your number the long way, the way the second grade standard does with 706: seven hundreds, no tens and six ones. Bigger number takes the round. Slide a zero into the middle on purpose sometimes, because that is the case I would make sure comes up, and saying “no tens” out loud does more for them than being told the zero is a placeholder. Once it is easy, play for the smallest number instead, which is harder than it sounds.

Ten more, ten less, for the jump in their head

This one needs no cards and no table. You say a number, they say ten more. Then ten less. Then a hundred more. The one rule is no counting, and if the counting starts, drop to smaller numbers rather than helping. We play this in the car, and it is the one on this list I would keep if I had to drop the rest, because once the tens jump is automatic I find the rest of the arithmetic gets shorter. Let them set numbers for you too, and get one wrong on purpose now and then.

Same digits, different number, for comparing

Deal three cards each, face up, and you both arrange yours into any three-digit number you like. Highest number wins the round, but the point of the game is the sentence afterwards: say which is bigger and why, naming the column that decided it. Both of you should sometimes make the worst number you can, so that your child has to explain why a big digit in the ones column is worth so little. This is the comparing the standards ask for with the greater-than and less-than symbols, and writing the symbol between the two numbers costs nothing extra.

The ten-times step, for fourth grade and up

Write a digit, then write it again with a zero after it, and keep going. What you are after is your child saying, in their own words, that each one is ten times the last. Then run it backwards, using the fourth grade standard’s own example, and ask how many seventies are in seven hundred. My experience is that children find this either obvious or completely opaque, with very little in between, and that the ones who find it opaque are the ones who later lose a lot of points on decimals, which makes it worth an evening of your time.

The worksheet that came home

Those five games all work the same way round: you pick the part, then you practice it. The page the teacher sent home is the opposite job, and in a real school week it is the one that matters most, because it is the exact thing your child got wrong on Tuesday. You can do it with a pen: take four or five questions off the page, change the numbers, and write them out again. I wrote the pen version out in full in How to Turn Your Child’s Math Homework into Practice Games.

When a game is not the answer

A game is practice, and practice assumes the idea landed. If those questions showed a child counting in ones at every turn, more rounds of a comparing game will not help, and my view is that the honest move is to go back to the straws even if their grade is well past that. Place value is one of the few things in elementary math where I think going backwards is the faster route.

I would also watch for a child who has started to dread the subject, and I would deal with that before the gap. What worked in our house was going back to numbers they could already handle and staying there until the dread went, which bought back more than pushing on would have. If something has felt stubborn all year rather than just out of practice, that is a conversation with the teacher rather than another game.

Frequently asked questions

What is place value, in plain words?

It is the idea that a digit is worth different amounts depending on where it sits. The second grade standard puts it as understanding “that the three digits of a three-digit number represent amounts of hundreds, tens, and ones”, with its own example being that “706 equals 7 hundreds, 0 tens, and 6 ones.” The part I have to explain is the zero in the middle.

What are good place value games to play at home?

The ones aimed at one part of it. Mine are bundling small objects into tens, dealing cards and saying the number the long way, asking for ten more and ten less in your head, making two numbers out of the same digits and comparing them, and for older children the step where a place is worth ten times the place to its right. A deck of cards, a handful of straws and some rubber bands cover all of them.

At what age do children learn place value?

It starts in kindergarten, where the standard asks children to “Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones.” First grade moves to the two digits of a two-digit number meaning tens and ones, second grade to three digits and a thousand, and fourth grade to the rule underneath all of it, that a digit “in one place represents ten times what it represents in the place to its right.”

My child can read big numbers but still counts in ones. Is that a problem?

It is the thing I would work on, yes. Reading a number aloud and knowing what its digits are worth are two different skills, and in my experience the second one is what makes the arithmetic get easier. The first grade standard is blunt about the test: find ten more or ten less “without having to count.” If the counting is still happening, I would stay on the bundling game rather than move up.

Do I need base ten blocks?

No. We have never owned any. Straws with a rubber band round every ten are what we use instead, and my view is that they are better, because your child makes the ten themselves instead of being handed one. We have used dry pasta and buttons the same way.