Over five million people live in Ireland. That sounds simple to say, but how would you write five million using only digits, with all of its zeros in place?

Each number is built on the place-value chart, column by column. Watch where every digit sits, and notice what the zeros are doing. Read the commas too, and be ready to name the groups.

Today we work through these numbers together on the place-value chart: 3,072,000, then 4,500,008, then 6,090,300, then 8,000,070. The zeros are the tricky part, so we will say each empty column aloud before we read the whole number.

Today we build these numbers with the place-value blocks: 305,072, then 1,400,008, then 6,070,500, then 9,008,040. The zeros catch people out, so we will say each one aloud before we check it.

What we learned today

• Each place-value column is worth ten times the one to its right, all the way up to millions.
• A zero holds a column open so the other digits keep their correct value.
• Commas every three digits split a number into groups we can read as millions, thousands and units.

Coming up

Next time we keep the same ten-times rule but travel the other way — to the right of the decimal point, into tenths, hundredths and thousandths.