If you give a child in kindergarten or first grade a bunch of beads or other small objects and ask the child to show you what the 3 in 35 stands for, the child might show you 3 of the beads. You might be tempted to respond that the 3 really stands for “thirty” and not 3. Of course it’s true that the 3 does stand for thirty, but is there a better way you could respond, so as to draw attention to the base-ten system? How could you organize the beads to make your point?