Our family follows sailing YouTubers as they travel the world. Some have millions of channel views and thousands of subscribers. For example, the #1 channel given on “40 Most Popular Sailing YouTubers August 2020” has 261M channel views and 1.47M subscribers. We follow an American sailing family that got stuck in Fiji during hurricane season due to Covid-19 restrictions in Australia. Their channel, Sailing Zatara, lands at #4 of the top 40 with 41M channel views and 323K subscribers.
But children don’t necessarily know what 323K and 1.47M represent. The K stands for “thousand” and the M stands for "million".
Parent: How many channel views is 41M?
Child A: 41 million?
Parent: Good! How about 1.47M? What is that number?
Child B: I have no idea. 1.47 million?
Parent: Yes, but say the full number.
Child A: I don’t know.
Parent: You can stay up later if you can get it.
Child A: One million…
Parent: What does the 4 stand for?
Child B: 4 hundred thousand…
Parent: And the 7?
Child A: 7 thousand….70 thousand? Is it 1 million four hundred seventy thousand
Parent: Yes! 1,470,000 subscribers!
Here is a recap of the numbers.
261M=261,000,000 which is 261 million.
1.47M=1,470,000 which is one million four hundred seventy thousand.
41M=41,000,000 which is 41 million.
323K=323,000 which is three hundred twenty-three thousand.
Place value can be a difficult concept, especially with large numbers. Child A had to think twice about whether to say seven thousand or seventy thousand. Notice how the parent gave an incentive and a nudge instead of telling the answer right away. After several such promptings, the children had the concept down. A good follow-up activity would be to have the kids write the numbers numerically and in words. But during family fun, watching sailors and channel views, “How many is that?” is enough.
40 Most Popular Sailing YouTubers August 2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-vV0Fq_LHE