If I say two hundred and sixteen, which digit do you write down first? Hands up: would you write the 2, the 1, or the 6 to start? And which side of the page does the first digit go on?

The interactive shows four numbers with place-value blocks. See how the blocks match the digits in the hundreds, tens and units columns. Look out for the columns where a zero has a job to do.

This is our number line, and it is new today. The big marks count up in hundreds: 0, 100, 200, all the way to 1,000. The smaller marks in between count in tens, so we can land exactly where a number belongs.

I will say a number in words, and one of you will drag the marker to it and read it back to us in digits. Everyone else: listen to the digits the pupil reads, then thumbs up if the words and digits match, or thumbs sideways if you would change something. We will try one hundred and fifty, three hundred and four, six hundred and ninety, and nine hundred and one.

New numbers this time, and a couple have hidden zeros we have not placed yet. Said in words: eight hundred and twenty-five, five hundred and six, four hundred and seventy, three hundred and nine. Place each one on the number line and check it before we move on.

Today we learned

• Every three-digit number can be written in digits and in words, and the two must always match.
• The words are said in order: hundreds, then tens, then units.
• A zero holds a place even when we don't say it, like the tens in four hundred and eight.

Coming up

Next we will pull numbers apart into their hundreds, tens and units, and put them back together again.