Comparing Values

Explicit Instruction/Teacher modeling

• Put students in partnerships and pass out the Vocabulary Cards. Read through the student-friendly definitions and refer to the corresponding visuals/symbols to support student understanding. Reinforce that the alligator on the greater than and less than symbols wants to "eat" the bigger/larger number. Provide a few examples for students to reference.
• Write down the vocabulary words on the whiteboard (compare, contrast, digit, equal to, greater than, less than, and place value).
• Choose a definition to read aloud to the class. Give students time in their partnerships to figure out what vocabulary word the definition connects to. Allow students to refer to their vocabulary cards for support.
• Instruct students to raise their hands if they know the correct vocabulary word. Have students come up to the whiteboard to circle the matching vocabulary word. Clarify any misconceptions. Continue the process until you've read all of the definitions and students seem to understand their meaning.
• Provide sentence frames to support students in sharing their answers with the rest of the class (e.g. "____ means ____. I know this because ____").

Guided Practice

• Write the following information on the whiteboard for students to refer to throughout guided practice: < greater than, = equal to, < less than. Draw teeth on the greater than and less than symbols to support student understanding.
• Keep students in partnerships and pass out a Place Value Mat: Three-Digit Numbers, whiteboard, and two whiteboard markers to each pair.
• Project the Less Than or Greater Than: 100 to 999 game on the whiteboard.
• Begin the game and pause after the first pair of numbers is shown. Instruct students to record the numbers on their place value mat, keeping the place values aligned. Remind students to compare the numbers by looking at how many hundreds, tens, and ones they have. Next, instruct them to sketch base-ten block representations for each number on their whiteboards. Ask students to raise their hand when they have figured out which symbol to use.
• Facilitate conversations by providing sentence frames, such as:
  • ____ is ____ (greater than, less than, equal to) ____. I know this because ____.
• Repeat the above process for two more problems in the game, pausing to allow students sufficient time to solve the problem and figure out the correct symbol.
• Allow a few partnerships to share out their answers, clarifying any misconceptions.

Group work time

• Have students stand up and scramble around the room. Instruct them to get together with a new partner they haven't worked with.
• Make sure each pair has a whiteboard, two whiteboard markers, and a place value mat.
• Pass out the sets of strategy cards to each partnership, handing each partner one of the cards. Instruct students to leave the strategy card face down on their desk. Pass out the other set of notecards (with three pairs of three-digit numbers) to each partnership at this time, too. It's fine if students see these.
• Instruct students to pick up their strategy card. Explain that the partner with the "base-ten sketches" notecard will figure out which number is greater than, less than, or equal to the other number using base-ten sketches. Explain to the students that the partner with the "place value mat" notecard will figure out which number is greater than, less than, or equal to the other number using only the place value mat. Reinforce that this means that they will compare the digits of each number to see which number has a greater value.
• Explain that after both partners have a chance to figure out the answers using the strategy on their strategy card, they will compare their answers and reflect on the strategy (base-ten sketches or place value mat) they used to solve the problem.