Place Value Hop!

Written and Illustrated by Liliana Totten

Standard CC.2.1.1.B.2- Use place value concepts to represent amounts of tens and ones and to compare two digit numbers.

One day, One decided to run away from his place on Number Line Street. “I do not like being the number 1," he said. "I never know what is going on down the road, and I am always so low.” One stepped out of his house, thinking that he was unimportant, and began to walk down Number Line Street looking very sad. 

“I am always at the far end of this number line, right next to zero. I have such a low value. Why must I always be the smallest?”

As One walked, he passed the houses of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. When he got to the end of the street, he noticed that the street kept going. There were many more houses with two-digit and even three-digit numbers, like 11, 18, 25, even 103! One had never seen those numbers before.

Just then, the Number Fairy appeared. “You seem troubled. What’s wrong, One?”

One sighed to himself. “I used to live at the far end of the Number Line Street, but I don’t like being the lowest. I don’t like it at all. So I am going away.”

 “But where will you go? Here on Number Line Street, every number has its own place value” said the Number Fairy.

One looked puzzled. He did not know what place value was. “What does place or value have anything to do with me? I am just lowly number 1. I hardly have any value at all.”

"I think it’s time to play place value hop." The Number Fairy drew three lines next to each other. “Go ahead and climb onto the first line.” Number 1 did just that.

“In the ones place, your value is 1. Now hop to the next line, which is the tens place.”

Ones

Drawing in a 0 in the ones place, the Number Fairy said, “In the tens place, your value is not 1, but… 10!”

“10! Wow. That is much greater than 1!”

“But wait, there is more. Now, hop to the next line, which is the hundreds place. What do you think your value will be?”

0

Tens Ones

0

“100. Each time I hop to the next line, or the next place value, I can add more zeros at the end! That makes my value higher and higher.”

0

Hundreds Tens Ones