Base-10 Basics

This past week, we jumped right back into the swing of things.  Thanks to EverydayMath's spiraling curriculum, my students were finally introduced to base-10.
I love launching new concepts with an exploration.  I busted out our base-10 bin and allowed students to "play" with the manipulatives first.  I truly believe that student need time to handle and play with tools before being asked to learn with them.  After students explored, we met on the carpet for an introduction of base-10.  We learned about the value that each tool holds.  Students then took a bag of base-10 tools to their seats and began creating numbers.

Of course, we wrote on our tables with dry erase markers!  I was thoroughly impressed with how quickly students picked up this concept.
In hopes of solidifying the concept even more, we read A Place for Zero, by Andeiline Sparagna LoPresti.  It is a fabulous tale of the number zero and how it searches for its place in Digitaria.

Do you have any great tools and activities that have worked for teaching base-10?