Concrete Model Decimal Match Up Lesson

Today, my students worked on matching up concrete models to decimals and relating it to expanded notation.  Making the connections that they are all related can be difficult to understand.  Thankfully, I heard a bunch of my kiddos say, “Now I get it!” as I was walking around the room!  That is the reason I teach…to hear those very words!!

How I set up this activity and how it went!

I posted the guided question slide asking how we can show decimals in different ways and asked them talk among themselves. I heard comments like money, fractions, number line, base ten, etc…  I even had one answer “brownies” because of our decimal brownie lesson last week.  I loved that one!  Here is the link to that lesson if you need a great introductory or fun follow up lesson to decimals.  It’s a student favorite for sure.  Of course, it does involve actual food and some school sadly don’t allow that anymore. 😦

Then, I introduced the target and instruction slide.  I read the target and asked for some of the vocabulary words I had heard early and let them know I would be listening for math language as I walked around the room. I also explained the instruction slide in detail.  I wanted to make sure everyone understood what to do before I sent them off to do the work. (Tip: Make sure to over explain that each row on the paper should be a match.  I had one student that automatically glued the pieces down randomly and he had to start over).  After there were no more questions, off they went!!

I roamed the room and helped anyone that might have been struggling.  I did put an example up on the board of a random number to show how expanded notation should look as a reminder.  Also, some of my students still need help recognizing coins and their worth as well.  So, I opened a Chromebook and put up our digital “Helpful Math Charts” slide up from their Google Classroom.

I had a couple students finish early and showed them how to write it out as a fraction on the side of the paper as the other students were finishing up.

This lesson took a little over an hour from beginning to end! When all the students were finished, we met back on the carpet. I showed the last slide and the kids answered some questions and discussed something we noticed and learned. I then gave them all an exit ticket that they had to draw on and show me they understand. Tomorrow, I will pull a couple kiddos that need just need to see me at my conference table for a few minutes and then we should be good!

Please let me know if you have any questions and you can find this resource by clicking the link HERE.

Have a great day and I will try to have a new lesson blog up in a week!

Rachel