Sequencing Learning

If you were asked to teach children on place value, how would you sequence the five learning tasks and WHY?:

-Place value chart
-Expanded Notation
-Number in Numerals

-Number in Words
-Tens and Ones notation

Below will be my suggestion
1. Number in Numerals
First of all, I would introduce the number in numerals. My reason is that recognizing numbers in numeric form is one of the fundamental math concept that children are most familiar with. Children will be invited to perform one to one counting using manipulatives such as wooden chopsticks or ice cream sticks. Moving on, they will show cardinality understanding by writing down the total number of sticks counted.


2. Tens and Ones Notion
Next, I would introduce numbers on tens and ones. To illustrate using concrete materials, sticks will be bundled in tens using a rubber band. Each time the child counted ten, the sticks will be bundled as one. Teachers will reinforce idea that the sticks can be categorized into tens and ones.



3. Place Value Chart
The third step would be showing the place value chart to the students, after they understand the tens and ones notion. Besides tens and ones, there are higher values such as hundreds, thousands and greater. Teacher may draw the students attention to the progressive increased of the number of digits as the value increases.






4. Expanded Notation
The more technical step is the introducing expanded notion, where student will see the relation between these numbers. Students will see by adding hundreds, tens or ones would results in a final number (e.g. 345: children will see that 3 hundreds is equivalent to 300 and 4 tens will be 4o)


5. Number in words
Finally, students will be introduce to numbers in word form. This step involves a larger role of language and literacy, which might be more difficult for children to fully master, especially two digits numerals such as eleven, twelve etc.