Purpose
Students investigate how place value helps people make sense of numbers in everyday contexts by creating and defending solutions to realistic problems involving decimals, powers of 10, rounding, and division. Over four weeks, they use math journals and exit slips to track their thinking, explain strategies with models and equations, and build confidence through daily whole-group reflection on what they tried, noticed, and revised. Working in peer groups, they develop products that answer the question, “How can we use place value to represent, compare, and explain numbers in real-world situations?” and share their work in a final exhibition.
Learning goals
Students will explain how each digit’s value changes by powers of 10 and use that understanding to represent, compare, round, and compute with whole numbers and decimals to the hundredths. They will solve authentic measurement, money, and data problems by adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing using place value strategies, models, equations, and clear written explanations in math journals and exit slips. Students will collaborate to design and revise a real-world number product, share it with peer groups, and use daily whole-group reflection to strengthen communication, reasoning, and confidence. Their work will address the question of how place value helps represent, compare, and explain numbers in real-world situations.
Products
Students will create place value tools and records throughout the project, including decimal/place value charts, area and array models, math journal entries, and exit slips that capture their strategies and reasoning. In teams, they will develop a real-world “Number Sense Guide” or mini display using prices, measurements, or community data to show rounding decimals, operations with decimals, powers of 10, and multi-digit division. They will also produce short written and oral explanations that compare numbers and justify solution methods using models, equations, and precise math language. The final product will be shared in peer group exhibitions, where students present their guide or display, respond to questions, and reflect during daily whole group discussions.
Launch
Open with a “Decimal Detective” challenge using real menus, store ads, receipts, and measurement labels, where teams sort, compare, round, and explain numbers they notice in everyday items. Present the essential question and ask groups to generate quick claims about how place value helps people make decisions with money, distance, or quantities, then share ideas in a short peer-group exhibition. Use math journals for students to sketch models or write initial strategies, followed by an exit slip about one real-world example of place value they understand and one they want to investigate. Close with a daily whole-group reflection on what patterns they noticed and how their team communicated and solved problems together.
Exhibition
Host a Place Value Showcase where peer groups present a real-world math product such as a mini-store budget, school snack cart plan, or community price comparison display that uses decimals, rounding, powers of 10, and multi-digit division. Each group should explain its models, calculations, and reasoning to classmates and invited families or school staff, using clear speaking roles and a visual display with charts, number lines, area models, or base-ten representations. Build in a gallery walk so students can listen, ask questions, and leave feedback for one another, then close with a whole-group reflection on how place value helped them represent, compare, and explain numbers in meaningful situations.
