A Lesson in Place Value Takes a Turn

     The other day we started a new unit in math: place value.  At the end of the lesson, we were using base ten blocks and some how we began questioning how many units would it take to cover our classroom floor.  We took our heads out of our books, left our desks and began problem solving.  Students counted the floor tiles and figured how many units it would take to cover one tile.  Very quickly they were able to calculate the area of our classroom in square units.  There were some bumps along the way, and they forgot to take into consideration that our classroom is not a simple rectangle.  The calculations were not perfect, but together we discovered that it would take over 600,000 units to cover our classroom floor!

Students counting floor tiles