My son is one of the most avid LEGO enthusiasts I have ever met. Recently, I harnessed his enthusiasm by using LEGO bricks to teach him everything from math to reading to science. Today I am going to show you how to use LEGO math to teach place value.
A handful of my blogger buddies just published a new book called Learning with LEGO® that my kids are absolutely crazy about! If you are looking for more ways to leverage the power of LEGO in your students’ learning, take a look at this great book!
Place Value Activities
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My five-year-old is very bright, with math being one of his very strong subjects. However, he was having a difficult time grasping the idea of place value.
No matter what I tried to draw for him on paper or explain to him in words, he just couldn’t understand what I meant when I said something like, “Eighteen is one ten and eight ones,” or, “Twenty-two is two tens and two ones.” He just looked at me like I was crazy. It was too abstract.
I had an idea to try some LEGO math games since he loves LEGO so much. I pulled out the LEGO bricks and our place value chart and showed him. Suddenly the idea of place value became concrete and he understood it perfectly. Now he can add two-digit numbers together with ease after this one simple lesson. Using LEGO math worked a miracle!
How to Teach Place Value Using LEGO Bricks
All you need to do is designate one column as your “10’s” and the other column as your “1’s”. Choose a number on your flip chart and then arrange your LEGO bricks to reflect that number. Easy! Take turns choosing numbers and arranging them with LEGO bricks. Turn it into a game! Have fun with it.
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I’ve just found your blog through #Pintorials linky. So many great ideas here! 🙂
Awesome, thanks for stopping by!
Great use of Legos! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks!
What a great idea!! When I taught we had Algebra Tiles that were somewhat similar, but Legos are even better. Thank you for sharing at Sharing Saturday!!
I know, I went to the store to buy some math manipulatives and then I thought, “Why don’t we just use Legos? They are basically the same thing and we already own them! Thanks for stopping by!
Learning with Legos is the best kind! I’m pinning this idea for when my daughter is learning this math concept!
Awesome! It worked SO well for us 🙂
Very good! Will be trying this with my girls! Thank you for linking up with the #pinitparty
Thanks for stopping by! Hope they enjoy this activity, too!
Teaching places values with legos?! What a great idea!
Thank you for stopping by the Thoughtful Spot Weekly Blog Hop this week. We hope to see you drop by our neck of the woods next week!
Than you so much for stopping by!
Oh, this looks like so much fun!! Thanks so much for sharing this at our link up! Hope you come back again this week, Rachael @sciencekiddo.com Diamonds in the Rough
Pinning this one as well 🙂
Thank you!
Hi there! What a great way to show place value- I love it and will pass it onto the teachers at school (I just teach music nowadays!) Visiting from Monday parenting pin!x
Thanks for passing it along!
Such a lovely idea of teaching place values with legos! You can explore more maths exercises with https://sciencekiddo.com//www.kidsfront.com/maths_mania.html
This is what I’ve been searching for. Thnks for posting. All kids love legos
Activities like these are perfect for making learning fun for kids. It can help them to learn and understand math concepts. Thanks for sharing these ideas!