Binary Place Value???

What program are you using?   What age?   I’m not sure why they would be doing it for the most part.

That said, as a computer programmer, I understand Binary Place Value.

Let’s look at Digital Place Value (Base 10.)  Going from the right, the first digit is 1’s.   the second digit is 10’s.  the third digit is 100’s.   Or, another way to put it.  The first digit is 10^0’s.   The second digit is 10^1’s.  The third digit is 10^2’s.

So  234   is the same as 2*100 + 3*10 + 4*1    (or 2*10^2 + 3*10^1 + 4 * 10^0)

It works the same for all bases.  So for base 8, the first digit from the right is 8^0.  The next is 8^1.  The next is 8^2

And, for base 2, the first digit from the right is 2^0, next is 2^1, next is 2^2, etc.  Or, the first digit is the 1’s, the second digit is the 2’s, the third digit is the 4’s, the fourth digit is the 8’s, etc.

Because it is base 2, the only digits you can use are 0 and 1.

So – counting – you get

(1)     1

(2)  10

(3)  11

(4)  100

(5)  101

(6) 110

(7)  111

(8) 1000

etc.

This is what computers use, because it can be represented by electricity being on or off (a simple switch.)

gotta run, can explain more in a bit.

Yeah, not sure why they would do it in 6th grade…  There may be other reasons, but not sure off hand.

Basically, instead of digits 0-9 there are only digits 0-1.

So instead of doing bundles of 10 sticks, then putting 10 bundles into a box to give you 100, and then 10 boxes into a crate to give you 1000….

Now you will take 2 sticks to make a bundle.  Then put 2 bundles into a box to give you 4.  Then 2 boxes into a crate to make 8.  (But in binary those numbers also look like 10 (which is 2 in decimal), 100 (which is 4 in decimal) and 1000 (which is 8 in decimal)