Expanded form worksheets

Writing 105 as 100 + 5 says out loud what place value means: each digit is worth its own amount, and the number is those amounts added. These free printable worksheets ask for the expanded form of two-, three- and four-digit numbers.

Expanded form
Expanded form worksheet — Two to four digits, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

The zeros are the interesting part. 105 expands to 100 + 5 and not 100 + 0 + 5, because a zero in the tens place means there are no tens to add — and a child who writes the zero in has understood the notation rather than the quantity. Numbers with an interior zero appear on the page deliberately for that reason.

Why this sheet works

Expanded form is also where mental addition comes from. Adding 234 and 152 by breaking both into hundreds, tens and ones is exactly this idea used forwards, and children who are fluent here find column addition much easier to make sense of when it arrives.