Lesson Plan

Menu Math: Rounding Decimals

Are your students hungry for math? In this lesson, students pretend to order their favorite takeout foods with their classmates all while practicing rounding decimals so that they know what to expect when the bill comes!
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Need extra help for EL students? Try the Talk About Rounding Decimals pre-lesson.
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Need extra help for EL students? Try the Talk About Rounding Decimals pre-lesson.

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to round decimals to the tenths and ones places.

The adjustment to the whole group lesson is a modification to differentiate for children who are English learners.
EL adjustments

Introduction

(5 minutes)
  • Discuss with students about a time when their family may have ordered or picked up take out. Talk about how it's important to know how much the bill will be before the delivery person arrives or they go to pick up the food.
  • Tell students it's important to know how to round money amounts so they can get a good idea of what to expect. Prices of food or other items for sale are a great way to practice working with decimals in the real world. It is helpful to know how to estimate total prices by rounding.
  • Introduce the concept of estimating, or roughly calculating, the total cost. Discuss with students how when they use this skill in the real world at a store or while making some other purchase, they will likely estimate the total cost rather than find the actual cost.
  • Tell students that today they will order pretend takeout foods for their friends or family. Show students the takeout menus you've collected to get them excited about the lesson.

Beginning

  • Tell students to discuss their family's takeout experience with a partner, preferably one who speaks the same home language (L1), before discussing with the whole class.

Intermediate

  • Provide student-friendly definitions in students' home language (L1) and English (L2) for the following terms: "cost," "estimate," "takeout," "decimals," and "rounding."