How Many Ways

Wednesday and Thursday we worked on building numbers in different ways using place value blocks.
Wednesday, we built the number 52 as a class with base 10 blocks.  First we built the number with the least amount of blocks as possible - 5 tens and 2 ones.
Then we discussed other ways to build the number by trading in tens for ones.  We ultimately came up with 6 ways to build 52.

 Here is our chart where we kept track of our different ways.

Then we discussed any patterns we saw with the chart. We discussed how the the number of tens decreased by one and as the ones increased by 10.  We also discussed counting by 10 when not starting at zero as we did for this problem.

Thursday, students worked in their table groups to build the number 123 in as many ways as they could using base 10 blocks. They kept track of their work in their math journal on page 9.  They had 7 minutes to come up with as many ways as possible to build 123.  Most students only came up with a handful of ways by the time the timer went off.  I then told them, there were 16 ways (insert shock and awe!).  Their homework for the weekend was to find the rest of the 16 ways.

Here are all 16 ways to build 123.

This activity really focuses on place value as well as number patters using addition which are two of the standards we cover in this first unit.