Place Value Adventure: Owl’s Busy Night Game
If you’ve already got the Math Kit Bundle 2, then you know how versatile the Owl’s Busy Night Play Mats are for hands-on number fun. Today, I'm sharing one creative way to use the owl cards from your kit to help students practice identifying tens and ones in two-digit numbers.This game is perfect after you've introduced the idea of place value, and you're looking for an engaging activity to help reinforce the concept that digits in the tens position represent something different than those in the ones.
With a little storytelling and some number fun, your students will be flying right along with Owl in no time!
Learning Goal:
Students will practice identifying the tens and ones digits in two-digit numbers by matching digits from flipped number tiles to numbers on the log.
You’ll Need:
- Owl’s Busy Night Play Mats (Owl, Tree Hollow, Log – Clock is optional)
- Number Tiles from Math Kit Bundle 1 (0–100)
- Log number cards (choose 5 two-digit numbers like 6, 83, 45, 16, 17)
- Counters or tokens to mark each of Owl’s flights (optional: use on the clock mat)
Set-Up:
- Shuffle the number tiles and place five two-digit numbers face-up along the log mat (one in each square).
- Place a selection of other number tiles (face down) in the tree hollow.
- Set out the owl play mat, and optionally, the clock mat with 12 counters for tracking Owl’s night flights.
How to Play: Owl’s Busy Night – Place Value Game
- Owl gets 12 night flights to collect all 5 bugs (number cards) from the log. (Each flight = 1 tile flipped from the tree hollow. Optional: place a counter on the clock after each flight.)
- On each flight, a student (or small group) flips one number tile from the tree hollow.
- Check for a match!
- If the tens OR ones digit of the flipped tile matches any tens or ones digit of the numbers on the log, it's a match.
- For example: A 23 is flipped, and there's an 83 on the log → the 3 in the ones place is a match. A 46 is flipped, and there's a 16 on the log → the 6 in the ones place is a match. A 42 is flipped, and there's a 45 on the log → the 4 in the tens place is a match.
- Matched number tiles go on the Owl’s mat — he’s caught a bug!
- If no match, the flipped tile is discarded, but the flight still counts — don’t forget to add a counter to the clock!
- Goal: Collect all 5 log numbers (bugs) in 12 or fewer flights.
- Celebrate a successful night of bug hunting with Owl!
Teaching Tips:
- Encourage students to say the tens and ones out loud: “23 – that’s 2 tens and 3 ones!”
- Play in pairs or small groups to encourage math talk.
- After the game, do a quick reflection: “Which numbers matched? Which digits helped you the most?”
This is just one creative way to use your Owl’s Busy Night cards from Math Kit Bundle 2. With a little imagination, math becomes a storytelling adventure — and your students are sure to enjoy helping Owl on his bug-collecting mission while practicing essential math skills.
Let me know how it goes in your classroom, and stay tuned for more ideas!