Skip to main content
👩‍🏫 Teaching Guide • Grade 1

How to Teach Tens and Ones

Place value is a major Grade 1 milestone because it helps students stop seeing larger numbers as long counting lists. This guide uses bundling, language, and comparison routines to make tens and ones concrete.

📐 Standards Alignment

1.NBT.B.2 CCSS.MATH

Understand that the two digits of a two-digit number represent amounts of tens and ones.

1.NBT.B.3 CCSS.MATH

Compare two two-digit numbers based on meanings of the tens and ones digits.

📦 Materials Needed

  • Base-ten blocks or bundles of sticks
  • Place-value mat
  • Number cards
  • Dry-erase board

🎯 Teaching Strategies

💡
Bundle Ones into Tens Physically trade ten single items for one grouped bundle so students see why a ten is useful.
💡
Say Numbers in Place-Value Language Read numbers aloud as "3 tens and 4 ones" before saying the standard number name.
💡
Compare with Tens First Give pairs of numbers and ask students to explain which is greater by naming the tens, then the ones.

⚠️ Common Misconceptions

❌ Misconception: Students reverse the digits in teen numbers

✅ Correction: Model teen numbers with one ten stick and extra ones every time.

❌ Misconception: Students think the digit 0 has no job in a number like 30

✅ Correction: Explain that the 0 shows there are no extra ones.

📊 Differentiation Tips

Struggling

Limit numbers to 11-20 first so students see one ten plus some ones.

On-level

Use quick daily warm-ups where students build, draw, and write the same number in three ways.

Advanced

Introduce numbers to 99 and ask students to compare three numbers at once.

🚀 Extension Activities

  1. Build mystery numbers from clues about tens and ones.
  2. Play a trading game where 10 ones can be exchanged for 1 ten.
  3. Sort number cards by how many tens they have.