Place-Value Manipulatives
By Cindy Aossey (KCM) & Funda Gonulates (NKU)
Hands-on experiences with place-value manipulatives support students in understanding the
critical role that base-ten units (1, 10, 100, etc) have in our number system. Students grow to
understand the relationships between units (e.g. a “hundred” is “10 tens”) and see how numbers
can be built and broken apart using these units. Students need to experience these concepts
using a variety of manipulatives. In this video, you'll learn about a variety of place-value
manipulatives, along with their features and strengths, appropriate for use in the early grades.