Intro to Decimals & Place Value
Decimals are used to write a number than is not a whole, like two-and-a-half. Decimals are numbers that are between whole numbers, for example: less than 9 but greater than 8. We're going to introduce how to build a decimal number using place value (100, 10, 0.1 and 0.01), run a Candy Shop and a Fast Food Restaurant, learn how to measure length in the metric system, introduce geography and mapping, track sea turtles and the speed our magnetic North Pole wanders over the centuries!
Download your Decimals #1 Workbook
To help you with your daily practice, I've put together a set of workbooks. You can use these or your own workbooks as long as it covers decimals. Plan to complete 4-5 pages per day. After you complete the pages, you may check the answer key.
Decimals Workbook #1: Parts 1-2
I've put together a set of videos that will walk you through this workbook, so grab yours and let's work together. There are four videos that cover Workbook #1, and you'll find the rest of the videos in the next session. Plan to complete 3-4 pages per day. After you complete the pages, you may check the answer key.
Run a Candy Shop
This is the NON-DECIMAL version of the Fast Food Restaurant in the Intermediate section below, and good for students who still need help understanding what numbers really mean. You can work through the entire activity on your own, but if you'd like to do it alongside me, use the videos below.
Measuring with Metric
Let's learn about the metric system by discovering how fun and easy it is to read centimeters and millimeters from a ruler. You will need a "cm" ruler (a ruler that reads in centimeters) starting next week, but for this week I've provided one for you right on the worksheets.
Download your Decimals #1 Workbook
To help you with your daily practice, I've put together a set of workbooks. You can use these or your own workbooks as long as it covers decimals. Plan to complete 4-5 pages per day. After you complete the pages, you may check the answer key.
Fast Food Restaurant
Decimals are everywhere you look, especially in business! We're going to run our own restaurant and learn how to calculate totals with money, do sales forecasting, profit-and-loss, and basic charts. This is an introduction to some of the more in-depth topics we will do during our next study on Business Math, so have fun with it!
Decimals Game: Place Value with Dominoes
Explore place value with a simple dominoes game to help you understand the connection between the numbers themselves and what they represent, and how to say them out loud. You'll need the handout and a pair of scissors!
Decimals Game: Place Value with Cards & Dice
This is a simpler version that uses a deck of cards or a set of dice to get your numbers. It's more like a version of WAR using decimals. No handout needed for this activity.
Decimal Game: Number Sense with M&Ms
This is a fun packet of activities you can use to really get good practice with building decimal numbers. You can use colorful candies like M&Ms and Skittles, or non-edible markers like coins, beads or bits of colorful paper.
Advanced Level Math Class
Advanced students will focus on doing calculations as well as working on practical application of decimals. You'll need to have a firm grasp of decimals (operations like adding, subtracting, multiplying dividing) as well as converting between fractions and decimals in order to go through the content covered in the Advanced level.
Math Labs: Geography
This week I've put together a set of math labs based on geography. The first in the set covers the geography basics that all students should start with. The second set includes real-world applications where we track animal migration and the wandering position of the Earth's magnetic north pole. We also receive postcards from all over the world from a globe-trotting gnome as well as playing a game of Geography Battleship with a friend!
Geography Labs: Tracking Animal Migration and Magnetic Poles
Now that we understand how to find our position on the surface of a sphere using numbers, it's time to use this in a practical way. There are two labs for you to do: Tracking Sea Turtles and also tracking the Earth's Magnetic Pole.
Geography Lab: Globe-Trotting Gnomes
We have a friend that loves to travel, and every time he lands in a new city, he sends us a postcard! Let's see if we can figure out where he is and plot it on a map or use our globe for this exercise.
Geography Game: Battleship
Let's play a fun version of battleship using the same coordinate system we use to plot our own position on the surface of the Earth: using latitude and longitude! You'll need a friend to play and a separator so you can't peek at each other's board during the game.
Math Challenge
Each session, I have a special Math Challenge for you to work on after you work through some of the content in this area of math. The goal for these special math challenges is for you to be able to communicate your great ideas with your family and friends, without them being in a math class or having any knowledge of a specific area of math. You should be able to convey your great ideas to most people that are interested in hearing what you have to share. Many families find this part of the math program exciting for them to participate in with their student!
Solution to Fractions Week #7 Math Challenge
Touch one end of the bar to the middle of the other. If there is magnetic attraction, the touching end must be on the magnetized bar. If not, it is on the unmagnetized bar.
