Ten Frames, base ten, Cheerios!

Is it just me, or is it really hard to teach base ten in Kindergarten?  I had never taught base ten before common core, and now I'm being asked to teach it first quarter.  It's hard.  It's such an abstract concept, that it's not easy to convey it to Kinders. 

Anyway, we start out very basic- hands on, hands on, hands on.  Here's how we started it.  I gave them each a handful of Fruit Cheerios- not just plain old cheerios people, they are FRUIT flavored.  Yum :)  Side note:  I am loving all the new flavors being put out by Cheerios!!  Right?  Who's with me?

Anyway, they all get a handful and then we start grouping them into piles of ten.  Then we move onto putting them into base ten frames and matching the number of cheerios to a number card.  I try to show them that the first number is the "tens" and it tells how many ten frames will be filled and the last number is the "ones" and that is how many we should have left over that don't fill a ten frame.

They have been slowly but surely getting it!

Another side note:  This happened to be the lesson my principal walked in on to do an unannounced formal observation- oh my, did my heart stop?  yes.  But, it went well, and I already had my post observation conference and all is well- but can you imagine my panic when he walked in with his clipboard... you know the clipboard during THIS lesson.  yeah, glad that's over :)

I'd love to hear from you.

How do you teach base ten?  (maybe I should host my first ever linky party for all the great ideas??)
What is the hardest thing you think to teach in Kinder (or your grade level)?