Mathematics

Beginner

50 mins

Teacher/Student led

Learning Goals

Learning Outcomes

Lesson Files

+80 XP

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC or iPad/Tablet
IWB/Projector/Large Screen

Place Value to Ten Million: Reading and Writing Seven-digit Numbers

Learn to read and write seven-digit numbers up to ten million, exploring place-value columns from units to ten millions and understanding why digits are grouped in threes with commas.

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1 Getting Started
2 Model on IWB
3 Try Together
4 Set up the Columns in Your Jotter
5 Independent Challenge
6 Wrap-up Maths-talk
7 What's Next
Pupil practice
Going further
Homework

1 - Getting Started

Welcome to your first P7 maths lesson of the year. Before we open any books, a quick question for the whole class to think about and share.

What's the biggest number you have ever seen written down in real life — not in a maths book, but out in the world? Maybe it was a newspaper headline about a sports crowd, a scoreboard at Casement Park or Windsor Park, a road sign showing the distance to Dublin in miles, or a population sign on the edge of a town.

Share where you saw it and roughly how big it was. By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to read and write numbers as big as ten million in figures AND in words.

Teacher Notes

Open with a single open question and 8 seconds of wait time before taking responses. Accept anything pupils offer — newspaper headlines, road signs, lottery jackpots, GAA crowd figures, telephone numbers, registration plates. Revoice each answer into place-value language ('three million — that's a 3 in the M column, then zeros all the way down') so pupils hear the column names they're about to learn before you teach them formally. Do NOT correct or rank guesses — the goal is to get pupils noticing that big numbers are everywhere, not to test prior knowledge.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Model on IWB

Watch as four big numbers appear one by one on the place-value mat. The columns are labelled from the right: U (units), T (tens), H (hundreds), Th (thousands), TTh (ten thousands), HTh (hundred thousands), M (millions). Today a new column joins them on the far left: TM (ten millions).

For each number, notice which columns are filled, which columns hold a zero, and how the words for the number match the columns left-to-right.

Teacher Notes

Walk each example aloud, pausing on the column that does the new teaching. For 1,250,000 emphasise the spoken form — 'one million, two hundred and fifty thousand' — and point to the comma between M and HTh: 'this comma reads as the word million'. For 4,073,500 stop on the HTh column: 'no hundred thousands, but we have to show the column with a zero — pull the zero out and the whole number falls apart'. For 9,999,999 ask 'what comes next?' and accept guesses before revealing 10,000,000 in the fourth example. For 10,000,000 introduce the TM column explicitly: 'one new column on the left — ten millions — and from here we can write any number up to ninety-nine million on this mat'. Do NOT progress to the try-together until the class can read each number aloud in unison.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Try Together

Now you build the numbers. The teacher will call a number out loud; an individual pupil comes up to the board to set the blocks on the place-value mat, one column at a time. The rest of the class predicts and calls out the digits before the build is checked.

Numbers to build together, in turn:

two million, three hundred and forty thousand
five million, eighty thousand, nine hundred
seven million, four hundred and two thousand, ten

Build along on the place-value mat

Teacher Notes

Call one number at a time. Choose an individual pupil for each build, varying who comes up so it's not always the keenest hands. Before the chosen pupil places anything, ask the rest of the class to predict the first digit and which column it goes in — get the class chorusing the column name. Then the IWB pupil sets the digit. Repeat column by column. When the build is complete, the whole class reads the number back together in spoken form. The three suggested numbers vary the position of the zeros (mid-number, end-of-number, both) — useful for catching place-holder slips. Reset the mat between each number. If a pupil places a digit in the wrong column, do not correct — ask the class 'does that read as the number we wanted?' and let the chorus do the correcting.

+15 XP

4 - Set up the Columns in Your Jotter

COPYBOOK MOMENT

In your jotter, write the eight place-value column headings — TM, M, HTh, TTh, Th, H, T, U — across the top of a fresh page, spaced evenly from left to right. Then as the teacher calls each number for the Try Together build, write each digit in your jotter under the matching column heading, lined up with the column above.

Teacher Notes

Walk the room glancing at column spacing and digit alignment — pupils' columns should run left-to-right TM through U with the digits sitting cleanly under the headings. No marking, no individual correction — this is parallel-work accountability, not assessment. The point is that every pupil's pencil moves while only one is at the IWB. Pupils who set the columns too close together on the left will run out of room on the right; quietly suggest they rule a fresh line and try again rather than squashing.

+10 XP

5 - Independent Challenge

Five numbers to build on the place-value mat. An individual pupil comes up for each one; the class predicts the digits and the columns before the build is checked. The last number is a real one — roughly the runners at a recent Belfast Marathon — and it's shorter than the others. Notice why.

Build the called number

Teacher Notes

Run the core bank in class with the whole class predicting and individual pupils building at the IWB. After each build, ask the class to read the number back in words to lock the spoken form. The deliberate range — four full seven-digit numbers and one five-digit number — pushes pupils to notice that the same place-value system handles all sizes; the columns to the left of the leading digit simply aren't used. The extension bank (multi-internal-zero numbers and the eight-digit stretches just past ten million) is for fast finishers on a device or a follow-up small-group beat; do not run it whole-class. The homework bank is for the at-home consolidation panel — same level as core, distinct numbers, no class-time required.

+15 XP

6 - Wrap-up Maths-talk

One question to think about and discuss before we close.

Think about

Why do we group digits in threes with commas? What would happen if we grouped in fours instead — would it be easier or harder to read big numbers?

Teacher Notes

Display the prompt; wait 10 seconds before taking responses. Take 2-3 pupil voices, then revoice the key idea: 'we group in threes because every three columns introduces a new named unit — thousand, million, billion. The comma marks the boundary between the named groups so our eyes can find the size of the number quickly.' This is display-only — pupils talk, no typing, no recording. Close the talk by reading 4,073,500 aloud once more as a class, leaning into the comma to emphasise 'four million, seventy-three thousand, five hundred'.

+10 XP

7 - What's Next

Today you read and wrote seven-digit numbers in figures and words, named the place-value columns from units to ten millions, and looked at why digits are grouped in threes with commas.

Pupils complete activity-book page 1 during this lesson.

Activity-book page 1 asks you to write five seven-digit numbers from prose descriptions — each one is given to you in words, and you write it back in figures with the commas in the right places.

Next lesson we move from reading the whole number to finding the value of each digit — the 7 in 374,250 is worth seventy thousand, not seven, and we'll learn how to say that out loud and in writing.

Teacher Notes

Pupils complete activity-book page 1 during this lesson. Page 1 asks pupils to convert five prose descriptions (e.g. 'three million, four hundred and twenty-five thousand, two hundred') into figures with correct comma placement. Allocate the remaining 13 minutes of the slot — pupils sit, you circulate. Listen for trailing-zero slips ('three million two hundred' written as 3,200 instead of 3,000,200) and missed place-holders (writing 5,008,000 as 58,000). Mark the page next day from the activity-book answer key. Preview tomorrow's lesson briefly in the last 30 seconds: 'tomorrow we work out what each digit is WORTH — the 7 in 374,250 is worth seventy thousand'.

+5 XP

Pupil practice

Module 1 · Number: Place Value, Negative Numbers and Order of Operations Number

Activity Book — Page 1

Lesson 1 · Place Value to Ten Million: Reading and Writing Seven-digit Numbers

Download Activity Book page (PDF)

Going further

Extension challenges

If you finish early — try these harder challenges on your device.

Place value blocks

Practice at home

Homework

Device required

Tonight's homework — work through these on your device.

Place value blocks

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This lesson is copyright of Coding Ireland 2017 - 2025. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.

Place Value to Ten Million: Reading and Writing Seven-digit Numbers

Teacher Class Feed

1 - Getting Started

2 - Model on IWB

3 - Try Together

Build along on the place-value mat

4 - Set up the Columns in Your Jotter

5 - Independent Challenge

Build the called number

6 - Wrap-up Maths-talk

Think about

7 - What's Next

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