regrouping

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regrouping
By bg

I teach 2nd grade and my students also struggle with this new concept. What I have found to be successful is to tell them about "houses" and have them draw three houses in a row. We have the ones house, the tens house and
the hundreds house, etc. Throughout the lesson, I refer to our "houses." I have to remind them that we always begin any math problems with the "ones" house.
The next way I help them visualize what we are doing is to think of the bottom number as the people, and the top number as the apples in a tree. This way they will be reminded to start at the bottom and look up to see the apples

for correct subtraction. If there are not enough apples in the tree, they must go next door to the tens house and take one of the tens and add it to the apples to have enough for the people on the bottom. It is strange, I know, but it works for me! I hope this helps you.