Activities

1. Use the symbols >, =, or < to compare    0.250.55

2. Use the symbols >, =, or < to compare    0.30. 26

3. Use the symbols >, =, or < to compare    0.800.8

4. Jayla lives 0.28 miles away from the mall and her friend lives 0.43 miles away from the mall.  Write a statement comparing the distance of Jayla and her friend to the mall, and identify who is closer. Explain your answer.

5. The teacher wrote the following inequality on the front board and asked the students if it was correct?  Identify the statement as true or false and justify your answer.

0.2       =       0.20

6. Is the following statement always true? Explain your answer.

When comparing decimal values the decimal with the most digits after the decimal point is always the largest.

7. Luke runs 0.55 miles on Saturday and 0.6 miles on Sunday.  What day did he run the shorter distance?  How would you write each decimal as a fraction?  On Monday he is going to combine his runs from Saturday and Sunday.  Will he run more or less than 1 mile? Explain.

Answer Key/Rubric

1. < 

2. > 

3. =

4. Acceptable responses may include, but are not limited to:

• 0.28 < 0.43
• Jayla lives closer to the mall than her friend
• 0.28 miles is a shorter distance to travel than 0.43 miles

5. The inequality on the board is true.

Reasons might include, but are not limited to:

• Both the decimals are equal.  If you add a zero to the end of a decimal it does not change how much it is worth.
• = 0.20
• 

6. It is not always true.

Reasons might include, but are not limited to:

• When comparing decimal values you do not count the amount of digits to see which has a larger value.
• You have to compare the digits in each place value
• The length of the number doesn’t matter because you can always add zeros at the end of a decimal to make it the same length without changing its value
• Example 0.9 > 0.25418 because the first decimal has a 9 in the tenths place and the second one has a 2 in the tenths place.  You don’t need to go any further to compare because 9 tenths is greater than 2 tenths.

7. Luke ran the shorter distance on Saturday because 0.55 < 0.6 

If he ran both of his Saturday and Sunday runs on Monday he would be running over 1 mile.

Reasons might include, but are not limited to:

• If you add the decimals you will get a 1.15 and the whole number 1 followed by the decimal values means the value is greater than 1.
• If you add the fractions you would get a numerator greater than the denominator and that would be a mixed number so you would get a value more than 1 whole.