Write 3,650 on the IWB and give five seconds of quiet think-time before any hands. Take two or three hands-up answers, not open call-outs. Listen for whether pupils break it into chunks (three thousand ... six hundred ... and fifty) — that chunking is exactly what the lesson builds on.

Walk each example aloud, one at a time, pointing to each column as you read its chunk.

• 2,134 — a full number with every column working; read each chunk and point at the matching blocks.
• 5,008 — the key example. Ask the class which words warn you a column is empty before you reveal the reading. The leap from thousands straight to units is the thing to land.
• 6,400 — empty columns on the right this time; show that we simply stop after 'four hundred'.

Then introduce the number line, since this is the first time pupils meet it in the unit. Point out the big thousand marks and the little hundred marks between them. Trace your finger from 0 to find where 2,134 sits (just past 2,000), then where 6,400 sits (well along between 6,000 and 7,000). Say the move aloud each time: 'find the thousand first, then slide along for the hundreds.' This is the model pupils will copy at the board in the next step.

This round is for talking it through together — pupils take turns at the board and the class agrees or corrects out loud.

Read a number in words (e.g. 'four thousand and seventy'). Before any pupil comes up, ask the whole class to point in the air to roughly where it lands between the thousand marks — this keeps every pupil predicting on every turn. Then have one pupil drag the marker to the right gap; the class agrees or corrects. Rotate four pupils. Mix in numbers with empty columns (4,070; 7,016) and ask which chunk tells you a column is empty. Keep the focus on placing on the line here — the reading-aloud and building work happens on the blocks in the Watch and Notice and Class Challenge steps. Revoice strong answers: 'so 4,070 sits just past the 4,000 mark, because there are no hundreds.'

This round is the practice bank — pupils take turns at the board, check each answer, and the class confirms before moving on. Keep the board work brisk rather than over-explaining.

For each target, ask the class 'which words tell you a column is empty?' and take two or three hands-up answers before a pupil builds it — the same hands-up routine as the opening, so the watching class always has a job. 9,400 and 1,205 are the trickiest because zeros sit between working digits. Rotate pupils to the board; the rest predict with hands up and the class confirms.