Color can make learning a more fun and impactful experience. To help kids easily see the parts that make up three digit numbers, print these free place value cards on bright cardstock, cut apart the pieces and start building numbers.

Such an easy prep and also a memorable way to practice place value!  When you’re done, check out our Place Value Cover Up in our shop!

This post is sponsored by ASTROBRIGHTS® Papers.

Getting Ready

To prep, I printed the place value cards on my favorite shades of brightly colored ASTROBRIGHTS® Papers cardstock. You could really pick anything but I was in a neon kinda’ mood so I chose-

• 2 sheets of Solar Yellow for the ones.
• 3 sheets of Martian Green for the tens.
• 4 sheets of Plasma Pink for the hundreds.

I placed the cardstock in a stack and slid the sheets into my printer. Being careful to skip the first two pages of the place value download (HERE), I printed the cards and then cut them apart.

How to Use the Place Value Cards

There are so many different ways to use the place value cards but here are a few of my favorites-

ACTIVITY ONE – Write down or say a number and have students build it with the cards. Then, ask them to spread apart the cards and read the expanded notation. For example, if you said, “932”, students would build it and then say, “900+30+2.”

ACTIVITY TWO – Pass out several cards to each student in class. Then, call out a number and have the players with those place value cards come to the front of the room to build the number. For instance, if you said “823”, the students holding 800, 20 and 3 would walk up and work together to slide their cards into the right spot.

ACTIVITY THREE – Call out a number for kids to build with their place value cards. Then ask, “What is 10 more?” or “What is 10 less?” You can make it even more challenging by asking questions like, “What is 50 more?” or “What is 100 less?”

ACTIVITY FOUR – Call out two numbers and ask, “What number is bigger?” or “What number is smaller?”

Find More

Check out our Place Value Cover Up in our shop to continue the math adventure!  You can find more inspiration and ideas to COLORIZE your life at COLORIZE.tumblr.com.