The One With the Decimals Game

My 5th graders have been studying decimals this week.

Today's plan was to play a little review game followed by a quiz.

My first class came in and we did just that.

We played the game that came with our curriculum.

I have to admit, I had looked at the game beforehand but I had not actually played it until today.  Because we had an odd number of students, I sat down to play with one of them.  

This game was not fun.  And more importantly I didn't feel like my students were really gaining anything from the experience.  So I did what any modern day teacher would do...

I searched Pinterest before my next class came in.

Aww.  Pinterest to the rescue.

I found this little game instantly.

Thank you Nicole Shelby for having this gem in your TPT store.

My students love anything where they can roll dice so I knew this would be a hit.

And it was!!

After the students started playing one of them came up with a brilliant idea.  He and his partner happened to receive three different colored dice so they assigned each color to a place value.

For example the white dice always gave them the ones place.  The red - the tenths and the green - the hundredths.

I LOVED this idea and even more so because it was a special-ed student who came up with the idea!

I immediately went around and made sure everyone had three different colors and were using this method.

Students highlighted the winner of each round as they went.  

I loved that not only did my lower students get some extra practice right before a quiz but because of the luck factor they were able to beat their opponent - even when they thought their opponent was more advanced.  

Great game!  Will definitely be keeping this one around for station work.