Friday, April 1, 2022

Free Math Curriculum Expanded Form Puzzles Free Math Center Printable

 Free Expanded Form Printable Math Center Puzzles With Recording Sheets

With Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, and Ten Thousands


Help your kids practice writing in expanded form with these interactive, printable math centers and recording sheets. The best part? They're FREE!

Did you ever look at a large number like 15, 657, 321 and just skip over it and think "fifteen thousand....something." For kids in grades 3 and up, going from learning about numbers like hundreds or thousands to learning about numbers up to ten thousand or one million can feel like a big jump. 

Not only can they be hard to read, but it can be difficult to imagine such a large number - how many of us ever actually see ten thousand of anything?

That's where expanded form comes in, and why it's such an important part of teaching math the "new" way! Kids learn to build numbers first with items like place value blocks, then learn to visualize those amounts when writing in expanded form. This can REALLY be a big help in later grades (high school, college) when they need to plus those big numbers into complicated equations. If they are able to 'visualize' the number, the problems they encounter will make a lot more sense.


Just think about measuring the square feet or metres of your own yard or home. Someone may tell you that a backyard behind a home you want to buy is 7000 square feet, but can you actually picture what that might look like - how big or small that might be? Learning to visualize numbers will also help kids later on in life when making decisions like this.

And all it takes is a few minutes of practice every day!

So to help you and your kids or students practice this all-important concept, I made these expanded form puzzles and recording sheets. I highly recommend starting off slow with younger kids. Take a few tens puzzles out and some place value blocks or legos. Practice building the numbers, then taking them apart and building them again. Show them how all of the numbers relate (if you have more than 9 ones, you have a ten-block!) 

You can use the recording sheets for extra practice too, or to have students in a classroom record their learning for the day. These can also be laminated or put into a page protector and used over and over again with a dry-erase marker.

You can download this freebie below. I hope it brings some fun to your learning!


DOWNLOAD THIS FREE CENTER HERE

(Google Drive link - please share this page link, not the drive link. Thank you!)