Numbers to 1,000 — third-grade introduction

Numbers to 1,000 — third-grade introduction

Numbers to 1,000

Last year you learned all the numbers up to 100. This year we go ten times bigger — all the way to one thousand. Don't worry, the trick is the same: every number is just a few hundreds, a few tens and a few ones glued together.

A library of bags

Imagine ten shelves. On each shelf there are ten bags. Inside every bag are ten marbles.

1 marble = 1

1 bag of marbles = 10

1 shelf of bags = 100

10 shelves = 1,000

That is your road from 0 to 1,000. Every full shelf adds another hundred.

Ten shelves with ten bags each, one thousand marbles in total

Three-digit numbers

Look at the number 472:

  • the first digit (4) tells you the number of full shelves — four hundreds (400),
  • the second digit (7) tells you the leftover bags — seven tens (70),
  • the third digit (2) tells you the loose marbles — two ones.

Together: 400 + 70 + 2 = 472. We say "four hundred seventy-two".

When zero shows up

A zero is just an empty place. Look at 305:

  • 3 hundreds,
  • 0 tens (no leftover bags),
  • 5 ones.

The zero is important — without it, you would write 35, which is a much smaller number. Always read the digits in order, even when one of them is zero.

What you will learn here

Try it now