Decimals & Percents

Decimals trip up fourth graders for a specific reason: the numbers look familiar but the rules feel different. A kid who’s solid with whole numbers suddenly sees 0.3 and 0.30 and isn’t sure if they’re the same thing. Or they compare 0.9 and 0.12 and pick 0.12 because “twelve is bigger than nine.” These aren’t random mistakes — they’re what happens when whole number thinking collides with place value that goes the other direction.

This program spends the first two weeks just on that foundation. Week 1 is tenths — connecting fractions like 3/10 to the decimal 0.3 using bar models, number lines, and plain language. Week 2 extends to hundredths, and this is where money becomes your best friend. A penny is one hundredth of a dollar. Once that clicks, 0.25 isn’t an abstract concept anymore — it’s a quarter.

Building Toward Fluency

Week 3 is the key standard that most curricula rush through: expressing tenths as hundredths. Understanding that 3/10 = 30/100 isn’t just a conversion trick — it’s the foundation for adding fractions with different denominators and for understanding why 0.3 and 0.30 are the same. We use hundred grids to make this visual before it becomes procedural.

Weeks 4 through 6 build fluency with reading, writing, comparing, and ordering decimals. The comparing work is where most of the real learning happens. Kids need to internalize that you compare decimals place by place from left to right, not by counting digits or treating the decimal part like a whole number. By the end of Week 6, they’re rounding to the nearest tenth and estimating with benchmarks like 0.25, 0.5, and 0.75.

Adding and Applying

Week 7 is decimal addition — first with fractions (convert to a common denominator of 100, then add), then with decimals lined up by place value. The connection between the two methods reinforces why both representations work.

Weeks 8 and 9 are where it all comes together. Word problems with money, measurement, and multi-step reasoning. Then a cumulative assessment that touches every skill. The last worksheet asks students to explain their thinking in writing, because being able to do the math is one thing — being able to explain why it works is what actually sticks.