Step into 4-digit numbers — learn thousands, expanded form, and rounding!
You've conquered hundreds. Now it's time to go bigger. In Grade 3 we add the thousands place, which lets us work with numbers all the way up to 9,999. You'll also learn to round numbers — a super useful skill for everyday life.
Each place in a number is exactly 10 times bigger than the place to its right. This pattern never changes.
Think of it like stairs: Ones → Tens → Hundreds → Thousands. Each step up is ×10.
So 1,000 is ten times bigger than 100. One thousand = 10 hundreds = 100 tens = 1,000 ones.
Think of a school with 1,000 students. That's 10 classes of 100 students each. Or 100 groups of 10. Place value shows us all these connections!
We write a comma after the thousands digit: 4,829 (not 4829). The comma helps our eyes find the thousands place instantly. It sits between the hundreds and thousands digits.
Let's look at the number 3,847:
| Thousands | Hundreds | Tens | Ones |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 8 | 4 | 7 |
The 3 → thousands → worth 3,000
The 8 → hundreds → worth 800
The 4 → tens → worth 40
The 7 → ones → worth 7
3,847 = 3,000 + 800 + 40 + 7
| Digit | Place Name | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Thousands | 5,000 |
| 2 | Hundreds | 200 |
| 6 | Tens | 60 |
| 3 | Ones | 3 |
5,263 = 5,000 + 200 + 60 + 3 ✅
| Digit | Place Name | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 7 | Thousands | 7,000 |
| 0 | Hundreds | 0 (placeholder) |
| 5 | Tens | 50 |
| 0 | Ones | 0 (placeholder) |
7,050 = 7,000 + 50 ✅
Rounding means finding the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000. It makes numbers easier to work with when you don't need an exact answer.
The rule: Look at the digit to the right of the place you are rounding to.
Example: Round 3,847 to the nearest 100. Look at the tens digit: 4. Since 4 < 5, round down. Answer: 3,800.
1. Each place is 10 times bigger than the one to its right — always.
2. Zeros are placeholders — never leave them out from a number.
3. When rounding, always look at the digit one place to the right of where you are rounding.
Mistake 1 — Forgetting the comma. Write 4829 as 4,829. The comma makes large numbers easier to read and helps identify the thousands digit.
Mistake 2 — Rounding the wrong digit. To round to the nearest 100, you change the hundreds digit — not the tens. Look right, change left.
Mistake 3 — Dropping zero placeholders. 7,050 is NOT 7,50 or 750. Zeros keep every digit in its correct place. Remove them and the number completely changes.
Q1. In the number 6,394, what is the value of the digit 3?
A) 3 B) 30 C) 300
Answer: C — 300 (the 3 is in the hundreds place)Q2. Round 4,762 to the nearest 100.
A) 4,700 B) 4,800 C) 5,000
Answer: B — 4,800 (tens digit is 6, so round up)Q3. What is 2,000 + 500 + 8 in standard form?
A) 2,508 B) 2,580 C) 258
Answer: A — 2,508 (no tens, so zero placeholder needed)Ready for millions? Head to Grade 4!