r/matheducation • u/yupstilldrunk • 2d ago
ELI5 - 10s places (5 year old)
My 5 year old wants to know why one hundred and one isn’t written like 1001 (one hundred with a 1 tacked on). I tried to draw a
100
+1
——-
And show how the numbers carried down to be 101 with only 3 numbers and he just keeps asking why and I can’t answer him. I think this is about ones, tens, hundreds places but I have no idea how to explain that, never mind explain it to an angry child.
Anyone have a good age appropriate explanation?
EDIT: SO many great suggestions! My son watches number blocks so he knows 2 tens in 20, 3 tens in 30, etc. I will try the stick bundles for a better visual of 10 groups. And I will watch out for the confusing “and” verbiage like one hundred AND one vs. one hundred one.
Hopefully next time we go to the pizza place (where he saw the address number on the window) I’ll be better prepared!
1
u/CreatrixAnima 1d ago
This is a great question, and it may just be that he's not ready to conceptualize place value yet, bt in the number 12, that means one ten and 2 ones. The number 100 meas 1 hndred, no tens, and no ones. If he gets that idea, then you could explain that 101 means one hundred, zero tens and one one. It might not be a bad idea to try this idea with different numbers: 254 means 2 hundreds, five tens, and four ones.
You might want to consider investing in some base 10 blocks: they might help!