The purpose of this activity is to generate, say, and represent multi-digit numbers. Students arrange digit cards to create multi-digit numbers, and use base-ten blocks to represent each number. Teachers should remove cards showing 1 before distributing the set of digit cards, as they will be used later in the activity.

As students build numbers to the ten-thousands place, they may struggle to name the number. As they make sense of the value of the number, they should realize a need for more base-ten blocks, but should be given space to represent the number in a way that makes sense to them. It is not critical to name the number correctly or accurately describe how to build it. The idea is to create a bit of struggle to motivate another way to make sense of the number (MP1). Students see one way to represent 10,000 in the next activity.

• “How would you build 9,000?” (Use 9 of the large cubes)
• “What number would we make if we add one more 1,000?” (10,000)

The purpose of this activity is to develop a sense of the magnitude of 10,000 and to establish ten-thousand as a unit consisting of 10 units of one-thousand.

In the Launch, students learn that the 10-by-10 grid that represented 1 whole in a previous section now represents 100 in this activity. (It is important to establish that in these representations, each small square in the grid represents 1.) Students begin by organizing grids of 100 into groups of 1,000. Some students may intuitively decide to group grids by ten, while others may depend on counting each grid by 100. In the Activity Synthesis, students are invited to use their grids to create a class chart to show 10,000 as 10 units of one-thousand.

• “Let’s organize our grids into groups of 1,000 to make a chart of 10,000. How large do you think the chart is going to be?” (As big as the wall, the length of the whiteboard.)
• Combine groups of 10-by-10 grids to form 10 rows of 1,000 to create a class chart of 10,000.
• Choral count by 1,000 and highlight how the chart reflects the count.
• “Let’s record the groups of 1,000 on the chart as we count.”