In a previous post, I spoke of my introduction to comparing and ordering decimals. In an even different post, I reviewed an amazing Kagan book called Discovering Decimals by Laura Candler. The two activities we played for our second day of comparing and ordering decimals were out of that book.
In “Decimal War”, students are given a set of cards with different decimal numbers on each card. Students are grouped in pairs. They pass out the whole deck between the two of them face down. At the same time, the students flip over their first card. The person with the largest number wins that round and those cards. In case of a tie, they “declare war.” They each place three cards face down and turn the fourth one face up. The person with the highest fourth card wins all of those cards. Game continues until time is called.
I’m the Greatest:
For this activity, the students are still grouped in pairs. This game requires a deck of cards with all face cards removed. We used the 10’s card as a 0, and the ace card as a 1. The book has a black line master to record the numbers for this game. Students pass out all cards and then they each flip over six cards. On the black-line master, the decimal places are put in different places for each round. The students are to make the largest number with the cards they flip over. After making the number, they compare it to their partner’s number and the largest value wins that round making them “The Greatest”. To make it a little more stimulating, when I notice that all of the groups are finished I say “travel” and the students get up and find a new partner. I do this for each round, and there are four rounds.
I can’t stress to you enough, that if you teach decimals this book is a “must have.” There are so many excellent activities and games. The directions are very clear and precise with many extensions and additional activities for each lesson. There are templates and black-line masters for everything you need. Pretty much every aspect of decimals is covered in this book, from grades 3-8.