Two of the best ways for children to understand decimals are: a. by using money b. by looking at shapes which are divided into tenths. This set of pages looks in more detail at shapes. A series of rectangles is shown, each divided into ten equal parts: each part being one tenth. This is a very clear illustration of what tenths are and children should find it relatively easy to write down how much is shown: this could also be used on a whiteboard as a whole class activity at the start of the lesson. It could also be used to show that 1/10 is the same as 0.1, 2/10 the same as 0.2 etc. An interesting follow up is a mini investigation to see how many different ways two tenths of the rectangle can be shaded. The best approach to this is to shade the top left tenth and see how many ways one other square can be shaded - in this case it is 9. Then move onto having the top right square shaded and see how many ways one other square can be shaded (not including the top left which was done in the first set.) A pattern soon emerges.