Ideas of Teaching Place Value with Two-Digit Numbers – Ones and Tens

When children learn counting, they basically learn numbers as a kind of “continuum” that goes on and on. With simple counting, a child may not catch the meaning of number system easily and how it is built with ones, groups of tens, hundreds and so on.

In our school, I use different activities to introduce the concept of ones and tens to my little learners. I teach them through rhymes, stories, games and different activities.

Many children have difficulty with place value because it is abstract. Young children are concrete learners, meaning they need sensory experiences to develop their learning. That’s the reason when I teach place values, I generally use manipulatives such as blocks, ice cream sticks and other objects in a story or a play-way method.

A poem on the concept of Ones and Tens –

“I don’t know, but I have been told,

Tens are tall and Ones are small.

First, you count up all the Tens,

Then add the Ones on to the end.”