Tens and Ones

Skylar and Henry are taking their annual trip to the pumpkin farm. They love to find different kinds of pumpkins and then choose some to carve! This year, they have decided to bring bags to carry the pumpkins that they choose. However, they need to make sure they don't overfill their bags. Let's help Skylar and Henry learn about tens and ones as they count their pumpkins. What does it mean when someone says tens and ones? When someone says this, they are talking about the value of a digit depending on its place in a number. What does it mean when someone says tens? They are talking about groups of ten. One group of ten is equal to ten ones. Using groups of ten can be helpful when counting. But, what happens when you go past ten? The numbers eleven to nineteen have a special name. These numbers still have a ten and are called 'teen' numbers because their name usually ends in teen! There are also numbers like twenty, thirty and forty. Do you notice the pattern they follow? All of these numbers end in zero! The first number tells us how many groups of ten the number has. Now that we've learned a bit about tens and ones, let's see the pumpkins that Skylar and Henry have chosen! It looks like Skylar has chosen fifteen large pumpkins! Fifteen is made up of two digits, a one and a five. What do these numbers tell us when they are put together? The one tells us there is one group of ten and the five tells us there are five ones. Whilst Skylar puts those pumpkins away, it looks like Henry has grouped some together. He has found thirty small pumpkins and put them in a group! Thirty is made up of two digits, a three and a zero. What does the three tell us about the number thirty? The three tells us that there are three groups of ten in this number. What about the zero? The zero tells us that there are zero ones in this number! Finally, it looks like Skylar and Henry have combined their pumpkins to make one big group. They added fifteen and thirty to make forty-five. What do the digits in forty-five tell us? Forty-five is made up of two digits, a four and a five. What does the four tell us? The four tells us that there are four groups of ten in this number. What does the five tell us? The five tells us that there are five ones in this number. Before we see what Skylar and Henry do with their pumpkins, let's review. Today we learnt about tens and ones or, the value of a digit depending on its place in a number. We learnt that the number in the tens place tells us how many groups of ten there are, that there are a group of numbers called 'teen' numbers and that sometimes numbers follow patterns. Now, let's see about those pumpkins! "What did you carve, Henry?" "My best friend!" "Me too!"