This free math tutoring video shows the first step in learning to do mental math. This teaching technique can be started as soon as children have their facts (number bonds) to 10 memorized. (VERY easy to do with Cuisenaire Rods! check out my other videos!)
Once children learn to add and subtract using “making tens” strategies for problems within 20, they can then take that knowledge and extend it to numbers within 100 and even within 1,000. I first learned this method from the Singapore Math curriculum. Too bad math isn’t taught this way in the U.S.
I’ve seen it with my own children. This concept is the key that opens the door…
The concept in this free math tutoring video is slightly easier than talking about tens because we call numbers in the hundreds place, hundreds. This is not the case with the tens place. We say “twenty,” not “two-ten” or “thirty,” not “three-ten” as they do in other countries. Working on naming a certain number of hundreds when they add up to more than one thousand is the important concept here.
This free math tutoring video shows an important concept to understand for place value, the distributive property, and long multiplication and division. Start small and, over time, work your way up to the type of problem we did at the end. Let children figure out the pattern for themselves by using the Cuisenaire Rods to actually SEE how you are just jumping up to the next decimal place.
