Description
What our Order Decimals lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Order Decimals is a lesson for 3rd graders and 4th graders. You will likely only need one class session to complete it. Students will learn how to order decimals through the thousandths place in either ascending or descending order. This lesson is for students in 3rd grade and 4th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. One optional adjustment to this lesson is to have your students use graph paper to line up their decimals if needed. You could also have your students practice writing down the decimals on the activity sheet and using a highlighter to walk through each step of ordering. If you have more advanced students, you can begin to use larger and smaller numbers through the millions and millionths.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
ORDER DECIMALS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Ordering Decimals
The Order Decimals lesson plan includes three content pages. When putting numbers in order, you can list them from smallest to largest (ascending) or from largest to smallest (descending). You order decimals is just like you order whole numbers, except you move to the right of the decimal to determine the value of the number.
It can be helpful to use a decimal or place-value chart. First line up the decimal points and then compare the digits in each place-value position. The lesson includes a decimal place value chart for reference.
Let’s look at an example. Say you wanted to put the numbers 3.23, 1.05, and 1.61 in descending order. You can start by writing the numbers vertically, making sure to line up the decimal points. It can be helpful to use graph paper for this! To start comparing, you first look at the whole number (the leftmost column). Of these numbers, 3 is the largest, so 3.23 is first. The other two numbers have the same whole number, so we look at the next column. 6 is larger than 0, so 1.61 is next. Therefore, the answer is 3.23, 1.61, 1.05.
The lesson closes with a few more examples, showing how to use the same steps to put decimals in both descending and ascending order. You can do this with any number of digits or place values. The method is the same no matter what!
ORDER DECIMALS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Order Decimals lesson plan includes four worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, a homework assignment, and a quiz. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
SOLVE THE PROBLEM ACTIVITY
For the activity, you will need to print the worksheet on different colored paper. You will have several posters that match the colors you printed that list a group of numbers. Students will go to the poster that matches their colored paper and order the numbers on their worksheet.
ASCENDING AND DESCENDING PRACTICE WORKSHEET
The practice worksheet requires students to order groups of numbers. There are three groups total. For two groups, students will use ascending order. For the other group, they will write the numbers in descending order.
ORDER DECIMALS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
Similar to the practice worksheet, the homework assignment requires students to put numbers in ascending and descending order. Then they will answer a question about what the most important thing to do is before ordering decimals.
FILL IN THE BLANKS QUIZ
For the quiz, students will fill in the blanks in five statements that describe how to order decimals.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the the practice worksheet, the homework assignment, and the quiz. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
