Last week, I asked the students to tell me everything they know, like, don’t like, confused about, wonder, feel…etc, about decimals. I used these responses in developing the decimal unit as far as where I should start and what types of things I was sure to address during the course of the unit. The responses were really interesting and reinforced a lot the common misunderstandings/ misconceptions I think students have around decimals. I am surprised to hear that the majority of students like fractions much better than decimals!

Love that this student knows that decimals fall between whole numbers and I am assuming the “10” number talk is about the place values. Also interesting that the student says the five isn’t 5, it is 50. Is this because they are taught to put them into hundredths to compare easily???

This one reminds me of the 1st one, however this student only sees decimals as less than 1 but greater than zero. This is a common misconception students have about decimals.

Love SO much about this one! All of the beginning is lovely but especially love the “farther to the right, the smaller the decimal.” This statement is what I put in my decimal talking points (https://mathmindsblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/talking-points-decimals/) that I want to keep revisiting. I am assuming this student meant the value of the digit, but instead said decimal, which sounds like the number itself, which is not correct. Love the wonderings at the bottom as well! Pie:)

This seems to be the general feeling of decimals…it is about places and they make them cringe:( We will change that this year!

I love the wonder here about the zeros continuing after the decimal point, do we have to acknowledge them or not.

Love that they are “almost like a puzzle.”

I think the honesty in this one is beautiful. So much confusion that I cannot wait to work through!Wow, really doesn’t like them at all! It looks like the zeros after the decimal point is a confusion point for this student because they are comfortable with the fact that a number before the decimal means more than one whole.

-Kristin