Monday, October 8, 2012

Decimals!

What have we been up to this week?
Decimals and more decimals! 

Starting with ordering decimals least to greatest and heading 
into converting decimals to percents and/or fractions :)

Below is the item I will be sharing with you in today's post
FREE :)
Click here to download
This is two games in one! 
1. Ordering - I will share with you how I played this game in this way in my class.
2. War! - Old fashioned card game turned into decimal comparing! Students cut up all three sets of cards, pass the deck out to two players, and then flip over their cards to compare whose decimal is larger. That player gets to keep the cards! Keep going until someone runs out!

To play this game the "ordering" way:
I copied each of the above sheets on different colored sheets of paper. Each group of 6 was originally set up into 3 pairs. Each pair of students got a colored paper (so each of the pairs were working on a different set of cards). The students worked with their partner to organize their card set into order from least to greatest. Once we did this, we all checked our work to make sure we ordered our cards correctly. I challenged each group to combine their cards and make a long strand of least to greatest order using ALL of their cards at their group! They had so much fun doing this! I was not planning on this, but we ended up taping the cards together afterward so that I could display these long strands on the back of my classroom door! I really enjoyed this lesson! The kids had a great time, and so did I! I really enjoyed watching them learn, as well as listen to their discussions between their groups. There was actually A LOT of meaningful conversation going on! My favorite quote of the day that I overheard was one boy trying to explain to his group that 0.9 was greater than .09 -- he said, "a hundredth is less than a tenth. Think about cutting a cake into a hundred pieces or ten pieces...wouldn't you rather have one of the ten pieces?"
YAY! :)

The photo below shows the students attaching their long strand:
Taping the cards together from the back:
I extended this lesson by writing MANY numbers (and I mean a lot of numbers! I used a WHOLE stack of index cards!) on the backsides of index cards. I even included some challenging equivalencies (decimals, percents, fractions) just to test their knowledge. This was so much fun because we went out into the hallway. The class chose 2 captains that were the only people who were able to talk out loud...everyone else had to remain silent! Everyone had about 5 random cards in their hands that they were in charge of placing. Watching them develop strategies in order to sort these cards from least to greatest was so interesting! I loved every minute of watching them! All of my classes were able to complete this task, and I am so proud of them! They worked SO WELL as a team! 
Impressive!
I hope you can find a way to use this little ordering lesson with your students! It was so much fun, built team work, and helped them practice ordering decimals! A major bonus was being able to get up and move around! WOO HOO!


:)

2 comments:

  1. Love it!! Isn't it exciting when you overhear them "getting it?!" Great job!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for the amazing freebie! I can't wait to use this when we do decimals later in the year.:)
    Kristin
    iTeach 1:1

    ReplyDelete