Meaning of Decimal:

Decimals are the method people use to describe pieces of a whole in multiples of 10.   

Things that are shredded into 10 pieces are said to be shredded into 10ths.

Things that are shredded into a hundred pieces are said to be shredded into 100ths.

Things that are shredded into a thousand pieces are said to be shredded into 1000ths.

 

Shred a bar into 10 pieces.   Paste the bar back together.   Express how many pieces your have pasted back together as you go.

Given this bar, I will tear it along the marks below.

Here is 1 tenth of the bar

Here is 2 tenths of the bar pasted back together

Here is 3 tenths of the bar pasted back together

.... 

Here is 9 tenths of the bar pasted back together

Here is 10 tenths of the bar.   It is whole (1 complete piece) again.

Here is a bar torn into 100 pieces.

Here is a bar with 10 pieces pasted back together

Here is a bar with 35 pieces pasted back together

Below, we fill a glass with different amounts of lemonade ...   We assume that we could fill the class full (1whole glass), then we describe how much lemonade we actually put in the glass.

Check Your Understanding

Given something that is shredded into the following number of pieces, what do you think they are ????

1. 100 pieces          Answer 100 THS

 

2. 1000 pieces        Answer 1000 THS

 

3. 10000 pieces      Answer 10,000 THS

 

4. 100000 pieces     Answer 100,000 THS

 

5. 1000000 pieces   Answer 1,000,000 THS

 

6. 10 pieces            Answer 10 THs

 

Check Your Understanding