Methods Math Teachers Use to Reinforce Really Big Numbers to Students

Transcript

Hi, I'm Charlie Kasov. And this is methods math teachers use to reinforce really big numbers to students. Now, the main way that a teacher of say, third or fourth grade will teach students about millions and beyond, is by drawing spaces on a chalkboard. And having the students fill in the spaces. So, for example, we can pick the numbers five, four, six, seven, three. And we ask the student to identify each place. So, this is five, it's also in the ones place, four is in the ten's place, six is in the hundreds place, seven in the thousands place, three is in the ten thousand's place. So that students should be able to identify this as 37,645. If we were to keep adding onto it. For example, the number four, two, one, three, seven, six, four, five. We draw our places again and we start at three is the ten thousands. Then we ask the student, the one represents which place. And they should say, the hundred thousands. then the millions, then the 10 millions and so on. So, this is one way to reinforce big numbers. Another way, a more hands-on way is to create sheets with a grid of say, 500 spaces. And have the students color code, so they can draw in. You give one student a sheet and they draw it in purple. Give another say, orange. And give it to enough students and eventually they start to see how big the number's getting. If you give it to about 2000 students in a school and ask everyone to color code, you'll have a million. Then you can paste them altogether, and hang them up and kids can visually see what a million looks like. So, I'm Charlie Kasov and you just learned some ways to reinforce big numbers to students.

Charlie Kasov has been tutoring high school mathematics since 2004. He is qualified to teach several math subjects, including geometry, algebra, trigonometry and probability.

×