Tens and Ones: Place Value Lesson Plan Ideas

Early childhood math lesson plans can be hard to make, especially if some of your learners are still struggling with certain math concepts like place value. Lesson plans to teach place value and number sense are a great way to enrich your early childhood math curriculum and support your students.

Here’s a lesson plan idea from Math in Minutes that will help your little learners tackle new math concepts in no time!

Leaves Are Falling

Materials:

• 10 leaves
• Number line (with numbers 2” apart) or number squares numbered
• 1-10 drawn with chalk

Math Objectives that Meet Standards:

Children will:

1. Count by multiples of 1, 2, 5, and 10.
2. Practice one-to-one correspondence.

Leaves Are Falling

Tune: Are you Sleeping?

Leaves are falling,

One, two, three,

From the tree.

Four, five, six,

Falling to the ground.

Seven, eight, nine,

Ten leaves falling down,

Covering the ground.

How to Do It

1. This song teaches numeration and number sense. All you need is children and leaves!
2. Bring the children outside. Choose 10 children and ask them to collect one leaf each from the ground. (If no leaves are available, use construction paper cutouts).
3. When the children have their leaves, ask them to put the leaves together in a pile, counting in order as they place them in the pile, so they understand that the pile contains 10 leaves.
4. After making the pile, ask the children to pick up their leaves and stand on one of the numbers on the number line.
5. Ask them to count off, 1-10, so it is clear each child knows the number on which she is standing.

Instructions

l Label one basket "Green" and the other "Orange, Red, Yellow, and Brown."
What to Do
1. Talk about the colors of leaves in the fall.
2. Show children the real or paper leaves and ask what they notice about the
colors.
3. Tell the children that they are going to make the fall leaves fall! Show them the
baskets and explain that after the leaves fall, they are going to sort them by
color and place them in the appropriate basket.
4. Put the baskets on opposite sides of the circle.
5. Have children stand around the large cloth and hold onto the edges. Pile the
leaves onto the top of the cloth and help the children lift the cloth up and
down to toss the leaves into the air.
6. While they are tossing the leaves, ask children to call out colors they see.
7. Say, "When I count to three, we are going to let go of the cloth. When the
cloth falls to the ground, collect the leaves one at a time and take them to the
basket that matches their color."
8. Count to three and help the children drop the cloth and sort the leaves.
9. When all of the leaves are collected, consider looking through the collected
leaves or repeating the activity.
Assessment
To assess the children's learning, consider the following:
l Can each child identify the main colors on three leaves? Can they match the
leaves to baskets of the same colors?