Bright Idea Linky: An Interactive Number Line

It's my favorite time of the month again! Grab your computer and a good cup of coffee, because there are over a hundred bright ideas ready for you to peruse! I really appreciate you stopping by my blog!           

                           

This month's bright idea was a real game changer in my class. My group this year is having a tough time with math, so that means I am trying to find as many hands on ways to reach them so that we can all learn together!

 The second week of school we were working on number lines. I remembered back to a training I went to over the summer where the instructor told us about a hundreds chart on the floor to build number sense, and it just made sense!

Right then and there I broke out the tape! The less than straight blue tape forms our actual number line. Then I used washi tape to create the tick marks.

 Finally I used Post-It labels to write the numbers on, but I covered them in packing tape so that I could erase the numbers and change the scale.

Now it was time to try this bad boy out! At the time we were working on decimals to the hundredths place, so I labeled my Post-Its 0-1 with all the tenths in between. Then I took small stickies and wrote completely random decimals between 0 and 1 on them. The little stickies I passed out to the class, keeping one for myself.

 We all gathered around the number line and shared what we noticed about it. I made sure that everyone knew we were dealing with decimals between 0 and 1. they all assured me they knew this.
Then I placed my sticky that had fifteen hundredths down and explained why I chose to put it where I did.

 Then we went around our circle with each student placing their sticky where it belonged. Each student had to tell us their reasoning (see how I stuck that process TEKS in there?) for why they placed it where they did. Others asked questions if they didn't agree, or helped those that weren't quite sure.

 In the end, we had a number line full of decimals that the students could use to help them visualize. The best part though, it can be there all year when we need a refresher!

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For more amazing ideas, from fantastic bloggers check out the linky below. Items are listed by topic and grade level to make your search a little easier! 

An InLinkz Link-up