Decimal Tiles

Every semester I always say that I want to do more to help my Pre-Algebra students understand the idea of ordering decimals from least to greatest.  The Decimal Tiles below are part of my attempt to do so.  To prepare this activity, I pre-cut about 10 sets of the tiles and had my students work in groups of 2-3 to order the tiles from least to greatest.  Although all of the groups did not get the order correct, they were on the right track and on average had just a few numbers out of place.  What impressed me the most is that the students were talking about which numbers were smaller than the other numbers and why.  I overheard one student explaining to another student that negative and positive numbers are on a ‘continuum’.  I believe that the discussion that occurred among the students was invaluable.  If you come up with any other uses for these Decimal Tiles, I would love to hear about them!

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