Place Value Hats

When teaching multiplying and dividing decimals by 10, 100 or 1000 etc…

I made some hats which had the name of each place value on the front, for example, Tens, Ones, tenths, hundredths and one had the decimal point. I then gave the children a number card which they held, and I gave them the calculation they had to solve. For example, the children had the number 32.94 and I asked them to multiply by 10.

Because they have the hats on, they know that it’s not the columns or decimal point that moves but the numbers themselves, so it ends up with the children passing their numbers to their left or right, depending upon the sum.

This really helped my lower ability group because it is so visual. Hope you find this useful.