Learning Place Value with Pompoms and Pill Boxes

Bringing a tactile, visual and experiential component into math instruction can bring the “fun factor” into your lessons. In addition, incorporating multisensory dynamics into lessons makes them more memorable and concrete.

This activity is great for math centers, a classroom activity or individual remediation.

When I teach place values, I like to engage my students with colorful pompoms and pill boxes! You can usually find pill boxes and bags of assorted pompoms at a Dollar Store. With a few color coded labels, that cover the days of the week, your pill boxes can be transformed into pompom compartments. I like to put a single color in each compartment and I color code the labels to match. This makes it easy for students to reassemble the activity for the next person. Also, make sure to vary the number of pompoms in each partition. I like to make a variety of difficulty levels for the students and use the seven boxes as follows:

• Millions, Hundred Thousands, Ten Thousands, Thousands, Hundreds, Tens, Ones
• Hundreds, Tens, Ones, Decimal, Tenths, Hundredths, Thousandths
• Decimal, Tenths, Hundredths, Thousandths, Ten Thousandths, Hundred Thousandths, Millionths