Decimal Cards

Purpose:
The purpose of this activity is to help your child understand decimal place value.

Link to Number Framework:
Place Value, Stages 7-8

What you need:
• A deck of cards with the face cards and jokers removed (aces count as 1s and 10s count as 0s).

What to do:
• Choose a target decimal number (eg 4.825).
• Deal each player 6 cards (two more cards than the number of digits in the target number).
• Each player has to construct a number as close as possible to the target number. For example if a player is dealt 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9 the closest number they can make is 4.795.
• The player whose number is closest wins a point.
• The winning player chooses the number for the next round.
• You can play either that the first player to get 5 points wins, or whoever wins the most out of 10.

What you should be able to do:
• Use place value to decide which cards to use and in which order.
• Be able to tell you how many ones, tenths, hundredths etc in the number.
• Understand that the cards in the higher ‘places’ make more difference to the overall size of the number than those in the smaller ‘places’.

Variations:
• Change the number of decimal places in the target number.
• Require that the number be the closest possible number less than the target number.
• Require that the number be the closest possible number more than the target number.
• Include the jokers and allow them to be used as a wild card (any digit).