Teach your students to round decimals to whole numbers to estimate a quotient. In this lesson, students will have so much fun playing the Estimation Station game, they might forget they are learning!
Students will be able to round a decimal to a whole number to estimate a quotient.
The adjustment to the whole group lesson is a modification to differentiate for children who are English learners.
EL adjustments
Introduction
(5 minutes)
Show a video to review the concept of rounding (see related media).
Write a decimal, like 5.63, on the board and ask students to round it to the tenths place. Then ask students to round it to the nearest whole number (e.g., "Show me a thumbs-up if we should round up or a thumbs-down if we should round down.").
Tell students, "Today we are going to learn how to use rounding to estimate quotients when we are dividing decimals."
Beginning
Provide a transcript of the song lyrics with larger font and key terms highlighted. Provide visuals of each of the terms.
Ask students to tell you the difference between a decimal number and whole number. Allow students to use their home language (L1) or new language (L2) in all their discussions throughout the lesson.
Continue using the hand motions for rounding up and down throughout the lesson.
Intermediate
Write the academic language they can use throughout the lesson on the board as you introduce the language (e.g., "whole number," "tenths," "hundredths," "rounding up," "estimation," etc.).
Ask them to tell you the process you used to round the decimal number to a whole number.