Riddle Me This Place Value Activity

Riddle Me This is an engaging math activity for your 2nd and 3rd grade students to review place value.

If you’re looking for an outside-the-box way to work on (or review) place value with your students, you’ve come to the right place! In this packet you will find 15 clue cards: ten are on a third-grade level, five are a bit more challenging, and one is a blank card for students to use to create their own place value riddle. Students will read the clues to help them solve the riddle of “Which number are we looking for?”

There is a work-mat for students to use to write down digits as they solve the riddles and a line for their answers.

These cards may be used as a daily self-starter/morning work activity, one larger math activity to complete in one or two days, or as center/daily five activities. They can be used for individual problem solving, group problem solving, or whole class problem solving.

After the kids have had experience with the clue cards, they can create their own place value clue card on the blank template. It’s fun to let students solve each other’s riddles if there’s time. Otherwise, it’s a good indicator of whether there is understanding or not.

Tips

It can be a lot of paper to copy the cards for everyone. You can save paper, time, and energy by doing stations. Copy each clue card on cardstock (laminate if you’d like or have access to a laminator) and place one at each station. Once students have had time to solve a riddle, they’ll rotate to the next clue card. The work-mats are numbered so it will still be easy to check as a whole class.

Another idea would be to copy the cards 4 to a page by going to print, clicking on full page slides, and choosing either four slides vertical or four slides horizontal. This would make for smaller copies and less paper!

A 20 page PDF