​​​​​​Teaching ideas

•   Getting started (Getting started sheet 4)
  This link displays the Getting started on page 75 to use as a class discussion.

• Practical
  You could work through the practical on page 78 as a class exercise.

• Practical
  You could work through the practical on page 81 as a class exercise.

Teacher notes

• A common error when students are asked to say how many tenths, hundredths or thousandths there are altogether, is for them to just give the digit that is in that place value. Working with place value materials is the best way to help students understand place value fully, including nested place value.
• It is important for students to work with decimal place value materials until they understand roll over (where 1/10 is added to 9/10 or 1/100 is added to 99/100 etc) and nested place value fully.
• Ensure students understand nested place value. This is underpinned by understanding that when you get to 9 (hundredths) and you add one more that is 10 hundredths (10/100) which equals 1/10, and a 1 is put in the tenths column. When that 1 becomes a 2 that means there are 2/10 = 20/100 and so on. It is worth investing the time to get students to fully understand nested place value.

• Money is a useful way to explain place value. Most students understand that there are 100 cents in a dollar and 10 lots of 10 cents in a dollar. So $4.60 is 4 dollars and 6 lots of ten cents or 60 cents.
  60 gives the number of hundredths and so reinforces the idea of nested place value. However, misconceptions can arise if money is the only context used for decimals because we say “four dollars sixty five” but in measurement we say “four point six five”.