Fun Activities for Teaching Decimals – Students learn fractions and decimals as part of their math studies. When learning decimals in maths, students need to utilize their understanding of fractions that they already have. Students with some prior knowledge of fractions build a conceptual understanding of fractions more quickly than those who learn decimals and fractions separately. Using various learning techniques and math manipulatives like grids and blocks enables kids to understand decimals easily. Here are five fun-filled classroom activities that can be used to teach decimals:
Decimal Games
Utilizing simple things, like playing cards, can help you to teach decimals to young kids. The fun activities can help kids to relate their knowledge and understanding of how to apply decimals in daily life. By playing some rounding decimals games or practicing comparing decimals with the play card activities, students can easily learn the core concept of decimals and their place value. With some interesting flashcard games, students can also learn to add or subtract decimal numbers easily.
Pairing Decimals to Make 10
Pairing decimals is a fun activity that encourages students to practice adding decimal numbers. It is also a great way for kids to learn about the concepts of decimal place values. By giving students some decimal cards, instruct them to pair their cards so that the sum of the card values is ten. The students can also exchange their cards with each other to make the sum of ten.
Place-Value Mats
Learning decimals needs sound knowledge of place value as students have to understand where to put a decimal point while working with these decimals and shifting to the right or left. A Place-value mat is a great way to teach students the concept of decimal place value. These mats have boxes for ones, tenths, hundredths, and thousandths place value, with a large decimal place. You can give this mat and some base ten blocks to students to practice and represent some decimals numbers. This activity can be done with the play money as well.
Ten by Ten
A ten-by-ten graph paper is an amazing means to implement decimal visualization. This activity is helpful for students to understand decimals. Provide a ten-by-ten graph paper to each student with ten rows of ten equal segments along with some crayons or colored pencils. Give them a decimal value to represent it in the form of colors on their graph paper. Instruct them to choose a new color for filling in the new values. Give them decimal numbers until they fill the whole ten-by-ten squares with colors.
Line Them Up
One of the most important features of decimals that students must memorize is that when adding or subtracting decimals, they have to line up the decimals to keep the place value consistent in the answer. Pick ten students to become decimals and give the rest of the students one large card, each with a number from one to ten. Write some decimal numbers on the board and allow students to place themselves in the correct position to represent the number written on the board.
Conclusion
Learning decimals is an important math concept that might seem daunting to many students. This type of fear usually results from the lack of interest and complexity of the topic. Teaching this concept through real-life applications like sharing and other interactive illustrations can help students to grasp and retain this knowledge better. Cuemath offers various interactive resources for kids to learn mathematical concepts with ease. You can find some exciting math games, worksheets, and puzzles to strengthen your child’s math learning.