Flap Books: Powers of Ten (Multiply & Divide by 10, Again & Again!)

We've been working with the power of ten--more specifically, looking at what happens to a number as it is multiplied or divided by ten again and again. Here are a few of the highlights:

We began with The Great Wall of Base Ten. (photo, right) If you ever have a chance to do this with students, it's really eye-opening to build a model where numbers grow (multiply!) by powers of 10 as you move across the visual. We also read books and watched videos that show what happens when you multiply and divide by ten.

SCOOT! is always a hit in my clasroom and a version that requires students to multiply and divide decimals and whole numbers by 10 and 100 is really helpful. It gives students a bit of practice while they move about the classroom. It also provides an assessment check, allowing me to know who understands the concepts and who still needs a little practice.

After our success with the flap book "presents" we made with multiples and factors, I made another version to practice what we're learning about multiplying and dividing with powers of ten.

 Students answer nine problems (two sets) to investigate what happens when a number is either multiplied or divided by 10 again and again. Then they record patterns observed in the multiplication or division equations. This little flap book will be added to our math journals to demonstrate what we've learned about powers of ten. Blank versions of the sheets are also available for teachers and students to create their own powers of ten problems.

The new flap book is currently available at Teachers Pay Teachers and will soon be available at Teachers Notebook. As a new product, it is on sale...in addition to the big Thursday-Friday TPT sale.

I hope the last two days of your school week are tenfold fun!

Scoot: Multiply & Divide Decimals & Whole Numbers by Powers of 10

Have you played Scoot with your students? I love the game! Basically, you spread task cards around the room and each child moves from problem to problem when you call "Scoot," and enters answers on a record sheet.

I LOVE anything that involves getting up and moving! So I created a new Scoot game for my students to practice multiplying and dividing decimals and whole numbers by 10 and 100. The cards can also be used in math centers or as task cards for early finishers. Perfect for classrooms and homeschoolers!

I've designed the cards so that students must closely evaluate different combinations with similar numbers in every set of four cards. For example, cards #1-4 are as follows:

135 x 10
1.35 x 10
1.35 ÷ 10
13.5 x 10

All cards show some form of a whole number or decimal multiplied or divided by either 10 or 100. Exponents are NOT included.

32 cards, record sheet, and answer key are included.

This game was designed to support the following Common Core Standards:

• CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.A.1 Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.
• CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.A.2 Explain patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, and explain patterns in the placement of the decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10.

You'll find the game on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook!

Credits:
Cover Background, MyCuteGraphics
Frames & Bubble Border: Mr. Magician
Cartoon Characters: Monster Wrangler Mike

Powers of Ten: Powerful Teaching Resources

News Alert!
Check out my just-released SCOOT game that supports students as they practice multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals by 10 and 100. You'll find it on Teachers Pay Teachers and Teachers Notebook!

To commence our decimal unit, we looked at the powers of ten and more specifically:

• CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.A.1 Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it represents in the place to its left.
• CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.A.2 Explain patterns in the number of zeros of the product when multiplying a number by powers of 10, and explain patterns in the placement of the decimal point when a decimal is multiplied or divided by a power of 10. Use whole-number exponents to denote powers of 10.

Early on, we examined The Great Wall of Base Ten (from a lesson in The Math Learning Center's Bridges Curriculum):

On the far right of the picture, you see a unit (1cm x 1cm). What you can't see (and what the kids had to envision and then make) is what happens to the right of the unit. They cut out a tenth and a hundredth and discussed what happens to the number when you move each direction across The Great Wall of Base Ten.

Whenever possible, I like to share books and videos that reinforce or expound on our studies. Here are several favorites. (If you're in my class, watch the videos below!!) :)

Books: Powers of Ten


Ten Times Better by Richard Michelson - an excellent introduction to the topic, this book illustrates 10 times the numbers 1-10.










On Beyond a Million by David Schwartz - illustrates the powers of ten.









Big Numbers and Pictures That Show Just How Big They Are by Edward Packard - look for this out-of-print book at your library that also illustrates the powers of ten.










Can You Count to a Googol? by Robert E. Wells - Before we even began reading, my students connected the name "Googol" with the search engine. After we finished reading--and they learned the definition of "googol"--they had a pretty good guess about why it was given that name! (Also illustrates the powers of ten...all the way to a googol!)





Videos: Powers of Ten

Secret Worlds: The Universe Within - From the site: "View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons." After watching the presentation, you can manually zoom in and out, watching the powers of ten increase & decrease.

Powers of Ten - From YouTube: "Powers of Ten takes us on an adventure in magnitudes. Starting at a picnic by the lakeside in Chicago, this famous film transports us to the outer edges of the universe. Every ten seconds we view the starting point from ten times farther out until our own galaxy is visible only a s a speck of light among many others. Returning to Earth with breathtaking speed, we move inward- into the hand of the sleeping picnicker- with ten times more magnification every ten seconds. Our journey ends inside a proton of a carbon atom within a DNA molecule in a white blood cell. POWERS OF TEN © 1977 EAMES OFFICE LLC (Available at www.eamesoffice.com)"