Place Value Song | 3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade

Ride along next to Rob as he drives through the country side learning about place value in Numberock's most popular song. In his journey through the wild blueberry patch he’ll discover that ten thousands make ten thousand, ten ten thousands make one hundred thousand, and ten hundred thousands make one million.

Then he undertakes an epic hike - to see one million rocks near Machu Pichu! Holy Moly! As his trip nears its end, he discovers that even after the million’s place, the base ten pattern he has discovered has no end; a truth that draws him into quiet contemplation.

Place Value up to One Million Lyrics:

Narrator Intro:
Rob picked 9 blueberries, and then one more made ten.
After the 99th berry, he’d picked one hundred, and then
he’d picked 999 by the day’s end.
And when Rob found one more on the ground, that made one thousand.

Verse 1:
I lived next to a patch of wild blueberries.
Every day I filled my bucket and ate one thousand of these.
After day one, I'd eaten one thousand;
then 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then ten thousand…
20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, ninety thousand berries…
I ate so many of these, it was hard to believe!
But 10 days later what I found out then,
I'd eaten 100 groups of one thousand.
(That's 100,000 berries! Geez, Louise!)

Chorus:
Ten ones make ten.
Ten groups of ten are one hundred.
Ten hundreds make one thousand;
the pattern never ends.
Ten thousands make ten thousand.
Ten “ten thousands” make one hundred thousand.
Ten hundred thousands make one million.
The pattern's brilliant!

Verse 2:
I hiked a mountain with terraces made by the Incas.
There were more stones in all than I could think of.
I counted ten stones high and ten thousand across,
which meant each terrace was made of 100,000 rocks.
200, 300, 400, 500, six hundred thousand;
700, 800, nine hundred thousand.
And the tenth terrace up the mountain
meant, in all, the stones were one million.
(I hiked all the way to Machu Picchu, and then I knew...)

Bridge:
I took my math notebook with me to art
and started making a paper mache place value chart.
First there's the ONES (ones, tens, hundreds!).
Then there’s the THOUSANDS (thousands, ten thousands, hundred thousands!).
Then come the MILLIONS (one millions, ten millions, hundred millions!).
I gave my artwork to my teacher, Mrs. Williams.
Then we learned that every place value is ten times the size
of the place value to the right side.
(Then we sang with all our might, at Numberock's website!)

Outro:
One thousand thousands make one million
One thousand millions make one billion
One thousand billions make one trillion,
The base ten system is brilliant

Learn More

This song targets TEKS and Common Core place value standards in 4th grade. Look into the relevant standards here, or dig deeper into place value and our base-ten systems origins here.

If you are interested in getting ideas on how to plan a robust standards-aligned place value lesson, we recommend checking out Instructure's recommendations for common core standard  4.NBT.1 . These pages help break down standard language, lay out the grade-appropriate level of rigor for each concept, and offer a variety of suggestions for activities (lesson seeds) that help students achieve their learning targets

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