Chapter 8 - Ungrouped and Pre-Grouped

      When it comes to place value, many students may initially come across difficulty understanding the concept.  Two types of materials the text explains that can help children learn this concept are ungrouped materials and pre-grouped materials.  Some examples of ungrouped materials are beans, straws or more commonly seen are cubes.  These individually are ungrouped.  However, once these items are pout together in clumps such as a pack of ten beans or a bundle of ten straws or a pile of ten cubes, then they are called pre-grouped materials.  I have seen these manipulatives used in classrooms before and I’d like to use them in my classroom as well if I were to teach this concept.  Being able to actually see items and count out the objects in front of you has been found to be very beneficial.  The use of pre-grouped materials in particular gives the students a better grasp on place values for clumps of numbers.