First grade mathematicians will be working this year on number sense in order to improve their understanding of the relationship between numbers and their ability to do mental math. This guided lesson will help strengthen this important skill with targeted instruction and plenty of real-world practice problems. Once the lesson is finished, you can extend learning with the suggested number sense worksheets.

This year, first graders will be introduced to place value and our base 10 number system, usually by starting with 2-digit numbers (100 or less). This guided lesson helps introduce place value to first graders through instruction and examples targeted to this skill. If your child finishes the lesson and needs more practice with place value, download and print the accompanying worksheets suggested by our curriculum team.

Multiplication is essentially repeated addition, or growing numbers by doubling, tripling, quadrupling, and so on. This unit presents mental models and strategies that help students learn and review the concept of multiplication. Students explore multiplication using arrays, partial products, doubling methods and the standard algorithm to solve numerical and word problems. Students will multiply whole numbers and simple decimals by base ten exponents (i.e. .3 x 103).

This lesson is a continuation of place value practice, and offers more instruction on identifying tens and ones in 2-digit numbers. Once first graders are able to quickly identify place value they are then able to understand on a deeper level what larger numbers actually mean. This is crucial for the math fluency that will support higher-level concepts in the later grades.