Year 6 Understand place value within numbers with up to 7 digits worksheet

“Powers of ten” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 6 maths unit “Understand place value within numbers with up to 7 digits”, for children aged 10 to 11, and takes about 20 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Week 9 of the year, 5 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

Powers of ten

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 6 · Maths · about 20 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can spot that each step of 10 makes a number 10 times bigger, like 10 hundreds making 1000.

A Look back3 min

1.
4 tens and 7 ones make
2.
25 + 10 =
3.
Write the bigger number, 508 or 580.

B Watch me, then you4 min

Each row of blocks is one ten. Look at what ten of them make.

Watch me

10 tens make one hundred.

One hundred is 10 times the size of one ten.

So 10 × 10 = 100.

Now you

1.
10 hundreds make

C Your turn6 min

1.
1 × 10 =
2.
2 × 10 =
3.
10 × 10 =
4.
1000 × 10 =

Say it out loud: What changes in each row, and what stays the same?

D Spot the mistake3 min

Kit says: “1000 thousands make 10000000.”

1.
What do 1000 thousands really make?

E Think deeper4 min

1.
Mia writes 7000, then 70000, then 700000, then 7000000. What rule is she using?

How did it feel?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

Powers of ten · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. 47 If your child writes 74, the tens and ones are swapped. The 4 is in the tens place, so count 4 tens first, then 7 ones.

2. 35

3. 580

B

1. 1000

C

1. 10 If your child writes 11, they have added 1 and 10 instead of multiplying. One ten is ten ones, so the answer is 10.

2. 20

3. 100 If your child writes 20, they have added 10 and 10 instead of multiplying. Ten tens make a hundred, so count the 100 counters.

4. 10000

D

1. 1000000 If your child writes 10000000, they made Kit's mistake. 1000 thousands is one million, 1000000. Ten million is ten times bigger.

E

1. Look for: each number is 10 times the one before, so each step multiplies by 10.

Words to use

Say“Each time we multiply by 10, every digit moves one place to the left. What happens to the number at each step?”

Instead of“Tell them to learn the zeros by heart without looking at the pattern.”

After the sheet

Put 10 buttons in each of 10 cups and count them all. Then ask how many buttons 10 trays of 10 cups would hold.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

4 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

Scaling up to a million(with a plan)
Big number word problems(with a plan)
Reading big numbers(with a plan)
Zeros that hold places(with a plan)

Every Year 6 maths worksheet

The worksheets plan opens a printable sheet for every lesson in Years 1 to 6, each with its answers on a separate page for you. It costs £6.99 a month or £59 a year for the whole family, with no free trial.

The full StudyDen plan adds the lessons themselves, marked as your child works, with the worksheets included. It is 7 days free, then £29.99 a month.

Get the worksheets Try the full plan free

Both start with a free account; you choose the plan when you sign up.