Think about a big crowd at a hurling or football match. How many people do you think might be packed into a large GAA stadium on final day? Could it pass one thousand?

Where else have you seen really big numbers? On a jersey, in a price, or in the year we are living in right now?

Look at these snapshots of the blocks in the place-value columns. Notice the trade of ten hundred-flats for a thousand-cube, and read each number aloud with me.

Today we build friendly numbers near a thousand together on the place-value mat. We'll build 1,000, then 1,500, then 2,000 — each time saying how many thousands and how many hundreds it holds before we check.

Today we build these numbers on the mat, in order: 1,000 → 1,300 → 2,400 → 3,000. Each one adds a wrinkle — watch how the thousands column grows and where the zeros land.