Today, someone posted a great question and picture on social media.  The student perseverance is impressive, but how can teachers help students with this type of thinking move to a more efficient solution?

In my experience, those students need tasks that are designed to promote a strong conceptual understanding of multiplying by powers of ten.  For years, we did this with base 10 blocks, but today, you could also use digital manipulatives.  There are several available!

What kind of tasks and questions promote this understanding?  I have created a video for teachers and a letter for parents that give examples of student work, pictures, and ways to address conceptual understanding.  I hope they are helpful!

What are your strategies and ideas?  Please share by submitting a comment!

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Thank you!