Dienes Base 10 Blocks
Number · Year 2–Year 5
Thousands, hundreds, tens and ones. Build numbers and read the total.
About the dienes
Dienes blocks show what a number is made of. Drag a hundred flat, a ten rod or a unit out of the tray, and the total at the top adds up as you build.
The blocks are drawn in the conventional classroom colours and to scale with each other, so a hundred flat really does look like ten rods and a rod really does look like ten units. That proportion is the whole teaching point and is the thing most on-screen versions get wrong.
Use them for partitioning, for column addition and subtraction, and for the step before place value counters. Blocks show why ten ones become a ten; counters ask children to take it on trust.
Tidy up groups the blocks into rows by size, which turns a busy mat back into a readable number.
How to use it on your whiteboard
- 1Drag a block from the tray onto the mat, or tap it to drop one on.
- 2Build a number from thousands, hundreds, tens and ones. The total reads out at the top.
- 3Drag blocks around to group them, or to show an exchange.
- 4Tap Tidy up to sort everything into rows by size.
- 5Undo steps back one action at a time, and Clear takes everything off the mat.
Questions
- Are the blocks to scale?
- Yes. A ten rod is ten units long and a hundred flat is ten rods, drawn in the same proportion. A version that is not to scale cannot show why exchanging works.
- Can I show exchanging?
- Yes. Put ten units next to a rod and the class can see they are the same. For the abstract step afterwards, our place value counters have an Exchange button.
- How high does it go?
- Thousand cubes, hundred flats, ten rods and ones, so anything up to tens of thousands if you have room on the mat.