Description
What our Decimal Word Problems lesson plan includes
Lesson Objectives and Overview: Decimal Word Problems provides examples specifically related to numbers with decimals and offers students real-world examples of word problems such as those relating to money and time. It helps students find keywords so they know what operations to use to solve the problem. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to create and solve decimal word problems using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This lesson is for students in 5th grade and 6th grade.
Classroom Procedure
Every lesson plan provides you with a classroom procedure page that outlines a step-by-step guide to follow. You do not have to follow the guide exactly. The guide helps you organize the lesson and details when to hand out worksheets. It also lists information in the blue box that you might find useful. You will find the lesson objectives, state standards, and number of class sessions the lesson should take to complete in this area. In addition, it describes the supplies you will need as well as what and how you need to prepare beforehand. The supplies you will need for this lesson include a camera, dress-up clothes, and various props for photos.
Options for Lesson
Included with this lesson is an “Options for Lesson” section that lists a number of suggestions for activities to add to the lesson or substitutions for the ones already in the lesson. All of the suggestions for this lesson are for the lesson activity. One optional adjustment to the activity is to have your students use magazines or newspapers to find photos and then create word problems with decimals instead of taking their own photos. To extend the activity, you could have your students create a skit to go with their photo word problems. You could also have your students connect all four word problems together in a single scenario. Finally, you could have them create a video or movie that poses decimal word problems.
Teacher Notes
The teacher notes page includes lines that you can use to add your own notes as you’re preparing for this lesson.
DECIMAL WORD PROBLEMS LESSON PLAN CONTENT PAGES
Decimal Word Problems
The Decimal Word Problems lesson plan includes two content pages. We encounter math problems every single day! For example, you might ask your parents how much longer until you have dinner. This is actually asking about the difference between the current time and the time dinner begins. If you think about how much two things you want to buy will cost, you’re adding up two amounts. Word problems are a big part of everyone’s real lives! Therefore, it’s important that we learn the best strategies to solve them.
To solve word problems, we use three basic steps. First, we highlight the important information, including the amounts provided and the end goal. Second, we determine the operation—add, subtract, multiply, or divide. Third, we solve! The lesson goes into more detail about each step.
Three Steps
In step 1, we start by reading the problem carefully, making sure to take our time. If you cannot immediately figure out what’s going on in the problem, try changing the names in the problem to people you know to make it more familiar. Make sure to highlight or underline important information.
In step 2, we look for key words that will tell us which operation we should use. The lesson lists words and phrases that indicate each operation. For addition, you may see the following words and phrases: sum, add, both, altogether, total, in all, increase, combined, or plus. For subtraction, you may see: difference, fewer, decrease, subtract, left, less, minus, remains, or take away.
We also have key words for multiplication and division. For multiplication, look for the following: times, rate, each, product of, double, triple, of, or multiplied by. Finally, for division, you may see: equal shares, split, half, parts, per, into, quotient, divided by, out of, ratio of, or separated.
In step 3, we solve! Make sure to take your time and make sure you’re doing the mathematical part correctly. If you’re adding or subtracting, double check that you’ve lined up the decimal points. If you’re multiplying or dividing, make sure to count the right number of decimal places and change your divisor to a whole number if you need to.
The lesson includes two in-depth examples that walk you through each step one by one. It separates out the important information for step 1, highlights the key words for step 2, and solves for step 3.
DECIMAL WORD PROBLEMS LESSON PLAN WORKSHEETS
The Decimal Word Problems lesson plan includes four worksheets: an activity worksheet, a practice worksheet, a homework assignment, and a quiz. You can refer to the guide on the classroom procedure page to determine when to hand out each worksheet.
PHOTOS ACTIVITY WORKSHEET
Students work with a partner to complete the activity worksheet. Each pair will create their own decimal word problems by thinking about times in their lives when they have to solve math problems. They will stage four photos, each of which corresponds to one of their word problems. Each word problem must correspond to one operation: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They will also create an answer key for their problems.
SOLVING PROBLEMS PRACTICE WORKSHEET
For the practice worksheet, students will solve eight decimal word problems.
DECIMAL WORD PROBLEMS HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT
The homework assignment asks students to find a photo either online or in a magazine and create a word problem that relates to their photo. For their word problem, they can only use each operation (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) one time.
QUIZ
This lesson also includes a quiz that you can use to test students’ understanding of the lesson material. For the quiz, students will solve three decimal word problems using the three steps outlined in the lesson.
Worksheet Answer Keys
This lesson plan includes answer keys for the practice worksheet and the quiz. If you choose to administer the lesson pages to your students via PDF, you will need to save a new file that omits these pages. Otherwise, you can simply print out the applicable pages and keep these as reference for yourself when grading assignments.
