Things You'll Need:
- Paper/Pencil or board and board marker
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Step 1
Your student must first understand basic concepts of place value. He should know the names of the places (hundreds, tens, etc) and that digits in those places (in a number) have a certain value. Example: In the number 324, the 3 has a value of 300. If student does not understand these concepts, you should really review this before teaching expanded form.
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Step 2
If student grasps the basic concepts of place value, then give student a 2 digit number, such as 21. Show student what the expanded form looks like (20 + 1) and explain that this is called expanded form.
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Step 3
Tell student that when you write the expanded form of a number, you are taking the value of each digit and adding it to the values of the other digits.
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Step 4
Tell student that to write expanded form, we start with the left most digit, in this case, 2.
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Step 5
First, we need to determine the value of that 2. Since it is in the tens place, it means two group of ten. Two groups of ten is 20, so the value of the 2 is 20 (not 2). Write 20.
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Step 6
Next,tell student to look at the next digit, the 1. It is in the ones place, so this means that its value is 1. Student now writes: 20 +1.
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Step 7
Give student more two digits numbers. When student can consistently write these correctly, you can move on to 3 digit numbers, and then 4 using the same process.
