Place Value, Fractions, Decimals...Oh My!

It happens every year. You spend the fall semester teaching the nuances of place value to your eager (or sometimes less than eager) minds. Your students practice composing and decomposing numbers, writing numbers in words, expanded notation, and expanded form, and identifying the value of each digit. Once you finish teaching about whole numbers, you delve into the world of fractions and decimals. Not only do students need to gain a true understanding of fractions and decimals as parts of numbers, but they also need to become proficient in modeling, comparing, and ordering said fractions and decimals. Students leave for winter break (hopefully) having mastered this content and return to school in January to tackle to second semester.

Second semester, your students will problem solve, multiply and divide, study two dimensional and three dimensional shapes, and immerse themselves into the world of measurement, struggling to understand the difference between quarts and cups, inches and yards. Somehow, their knowledge and understanding of fractions and decimals seems to dwindle and no longer do you have a class full of place value masters. So how do you keep your students' first semester knowledge in tact when there is so much to teach and so little time.

Enter spiral review.

There are a ton of approaches to spiraling content within your classrooms, and I am a strong believe that every teacher is different and teachers need options in order to implement a strategy that works for them. In my classrooms, I spiral review in students' warmups, homework, and workstations.

My Friday warm-up is always our "Number of the Week." I start implementing this spiral strategy as soon as I've taught all of the content required for students to successfully complete the page. The number of the week can either be a fraction or a decimal. Students complete this activity as they enter the classroom and I circulate to check for understanding. I give students reminders and clarify understanding as I circulate.

This weekly practice keeps students' knowledge and skills involving place value, fractions, and decimals fresh. As a result, valuable time is saved when the time comes to review for those dreaded state tests and students remain confident in their skills throughout the year. I also found that students were no longer just memorizing the skills of modeling or writing in expanded form, but that this practice supports their understanding of how each of those representations are related. This practice produced a lot of "Now I get it!" which as each of you know, can truly make a teacher's day.

Thanks for tuning in!! Here are the links to get these resources!

Number of the Week: Fractions
Number of the Week: Decimals