Introduction to Decimals

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 Before starting to teach decimals and fractions I always suggest the following:

 "Keep one and only one thing in mind, which is what?" 

"1 itself". 

Yes, always keep the number "1" in your mind. This is the key and will open the doors to all the secrets hidden inside the decimal and fractions world. 

We can call “1” as "WHOLE" or can call it “ONES”. Everything starts from "1" and contain "1" in it. I mean all the numbers independent of how big or how small, can’t exist without the number “1”. 

Before we start to learn decimals please watch the video in my previous post. It will give you the idea of why do we need decimals on the first place. The link is given below:

How big and how small video

OK, let’s start to learn decimals. 

There are many systems of counting around the world and decimal system of counting is one of the most important one. The concept is tying up “ONES” into bigger blocks and splitting down “ONES” into tiny pieces. 

Let’s do an example to understand what has been written so far.   Remember, tying up into bundles makes bigger numbers and splitting up into pieces creates smaller numbers (smaller numbers known as fractional numbers also). 

Remember: DECI- means TEN. Hence the rule around the decimal system is going up or down by a factor of 10. What this sentence means? Let's do the following drills to understand it:

Now can you write the following numbers into fractional and decimal forms:

1. Two and Half
2. Six and Half
3. Two and Three Tenths
4. Seven and six Tenths