Part I: Lesson Setup
The unit goal is to ensure children understand the concepts of place values and apply the knowledge for daily usage. The learning objectives of the lesson are as follow: At the end of the lesson, pupils will be able to: a) recognise the place values of units, tens and hundreds, b) write the value in BOTH numerals and words, c) orally pronounce the values correctly (e.g 35: “thirty-five” NOT “three five”, d) explain the usefulness of place values in the real world situation (e.g. labelling items, quantity, age, year, prices etc), and e) construct numbers in various place values mentally. The essential materials needed for this lesson are: dienes block, abacus, flash cards, concrete materials (e.g. sea shells, paper clips, stones, beads, beans, marbles. These materials can be used to represent place values in a creative and unique way, and useful for class projects/activities.

Part II: Set Induction or “The Hook”
Bring some items with price tags to the classroom, for example story book, t-shirts, digital camera etc. The price should vary from at least a dollar to hundreds of dollar. Then ask the pupils to guess how much each item worth; “which is the cheapest and the most expensive?” etc (say that the book would cost around $7, the bag costs around $30 and the digital camera worth $200). Write the suggested price on the board, and finally tell them the real price of the items. Try to link the set induction with the lesson content, and introduce the topic ‘place value’ to the children.

Part III: Exploration Activities
For exploration, the teacher can organise hands-on activities for the children. Divide the pupils into groups of 4 or 5 teams and provide them with dienes block, abacus, flash cards, concrete materials (e.g. sea shells, paper clips, stones, beads, beans, marbles). Each group will be given a worksheet for this group activity. An example of the question; e.g. “Which of the number is larger? 245 or 542?” etc. Each group will need to explain on how they come up with the answer with the help of the materials given.

By Angela Jossela, Norayati Masilin @ Morsilin and Md Hamdani Mustapa.