Place Value Parking Spaces

Place Value is a lot like Parking Spaces.  Parking spaces can only hold ONE car at a time; place values only hold one DIGIT at a time.



Materials:
* poster board, cardboard, or other sturdy surface
* toothpicks, pipe cleaners, or straws
* toy cars (like Hot Wheels or Matchbox cars
* magnetic numbers (of similar size to toy cars) -- you'll need at least 3-4 for each digit

Procedures:
1) Begin by creating parking spaces on a board (like poster board or cardboard), using tooth picks.  Number of parking spaces should be appropriate for highest place value being taught (3 for hundreds, 4 for thousands, etc)  Be sure to create spaces big enough to hold toy cars.  It's important that spaces be big enough to ONLY hold ONE car!

2) Demonstrate, and have students demonstrate, how only one car fits in a parking space.  Also, relate back to real world: do we always have to use ALL the parking spaces?  No.  When we have empty parking spaces, there are ZERO cars in them.

3) Once students understand that each parking space holds only one car, pull out magnetic numbers of similar size to toy cars.  Explain how place value works the same way: only one digit can go in a space at a time.

4) Show examples of putting numbers in each parking space, and practice saying the numbers created.

**When working on addition, and showing how to carry numbers, this is especially effective for demonstrating WHY the one must carry over to the next "parking space".