Place Value Teaching Resources

Browse place value charts, printable worksheets, games and more teaching resources aligned to the Australian curriculum.

This collection of teacher-created resources has been carefully reviewed by the expert teachers on the Teach Starter team to ensure every single one is ready to use in the classroom. That means you can save hours on lesson planning with activities ready to print or use digitally!

Want to learn more about this section of the maths curriculum, or just looking for fresh ideas to engage your students? Read on for a primer from our teacher team, including a look at the meaning of place value and tips on teaching place value in the classroom!

What Is Place Value? A Kid-Friendly Definition

When it comes time to teach place value, it helps to have a simple definition to use to introduce this core maths concept to your class. Here's how we explain the meaning to our students:

In maths, the term place value refers to the value of a digit in relation to its position in a number. For example, in the decimal system (also referred to as the Hindu-Arabic system), which is based on powers of 10, the value of a digit in a number depends on its position relative to the decimal point, as follows:

The digit in the ones place has a value of 1 times the digit.
The digit in the tens place has a value of 10 times the digit.
The digit in the hundreds place has a value of 100 times the digit.
The digit in the thousands place has a value of 1000 times the digit.
And so on.

Place Value Example

Like most maths concepts, looking at place value examples with your students is key to helping them understand the concept. So let's look at an example of place value using the number 3245:

3 is in the thousands place
2 is in the hundreds place
4 is in the tens place
5 is in the ones place

Therefore, its value can be calculated as:

(3 x 1000) + (2 x 100) + (4 x 10) + (5 x 1) = 3000 +200 +40 + 5 = 3245.

Why Is Place Value Important?

Place value is an important concept for primary students to understand, as it is a major factor in understanding numbers and their overall value.

Understanding place value is also essential for performing the four maths operations, and it will help students as they move on toward working with decimal fractions, scientific notation and other mathematical concepts.

What Is a Place Value Chart?

A handy tool for teaching this maths concept is the place value chart! This visual teaching tool can be used to represent and organise numbers based on their value and position in a given number.

A place value chart is typically divided into columns representing the different powers of 10 in our number system. Each column is labelled with the name of the place value it represents (e.g. ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.) and contains a series of boxes or cells — each of which corresponds to a single digit.

The rightmost column will represent the ones place, the next column to the left will represent the tens place, the next represents the hundreds place, and so on.

Place Value vs. Face Value — What's the Difference?

At some point, your students may ask about face value — after all, the terms sound similar! So are they interchangeable? The answer is no.

Face value and place value — despite their similar names — are not the same, but they are related.

As we've already noted, the place value of a digit tells us the value of that digit based on its position in a number. The place value of a digit changes depending on where it is in the number.

On the other hand, the face value of a digit tells us the actual value of the digit itself, regardless of its position in the number. So, for example, in the number 357, the face value of the digit 5 is simply 5.

In essence, place value is what helps us understand the value of a number based on the position of its digits, but face value is what helps us understand the value of individual digits in a number.