September 06, 2006
I play a game with my students that I call Numbers Bee. Like in a Spelling Bee, the students line up and take turns providing answers; but, instead of hearing a word and spelling it, I write a number on the board, and the student has to say it correctly. You can do it with kindergartners who are just learning their numbers or with older students who are learning fractions and decimals. Besides reinforcing their place value skills, children learn not to say “and” in a number (for example, 2006 should be read as two thousand six, not two thousand and six, while 200.6 should be read as two thousand and six tenths).