Students practice place value skills on this fun puzzle-style worksheet! The top of the page states which digits go where in a four-digit number. Then, the instructions tell students that their phone is locked and they have to use the clues above to unlock it! Blank lines are included for each place value so students can fill them in according to the clues.

Lower grade level pages feature simple clues like "The hundreds place is a 1." Upper grade level pages feature more complex clues like "The tens place is the value of a nickel and four pennies." Some pages even feature decimal place value!

Upper grade levels provide students with the opportunity to double-check their work by stating what the answer would be if they added all the numbers in the unlock key. If they get a different answer, they can go back and try again.

Understanding place value helps students develop a deeper number sense. They are able to understand that a number represents different things depending on where it is located in a number, like how the number 2 in the tens place is actually the number 20. This level of understanding means students know where each number goes in an answer, regardless of the type of problem they're solving.

Students can complete basic activities like placing the digits in the correct places with clues like "the hundreds place is a 4." You can also incorporate other skills that you want students to practice. For example, they may have to add two numbers together to find the number that goes in the hundreds place. They could count coins, find the missing number in a pattern, or list the number of sides a specific shape has.

Puzzle activities that incorporate these clues can be especially engaging. Students could unlock a pretend phone by finding the right code or work their way through a maze, solving place value questions as they go.