Last week's freebie was the 4th Grade Common Core Math Quizzes, this week 5th grade is done and posted!

Grab the 5th Grade Common Core Math Quizzes for ALL Standards for FREE before they become a paid product. The Quizzes can be used as another document of mastery in your Student Portfolio Binders, or sent home to share progress with parents.

One of the most difficult standards for me and my fifth grade students is the big jump from operations with whole numbers to operations with decimals. Fourth grade introduces adding and subtracting fractions, but in one year, fifth graders are expected to master all four operations with fractions and decimals, including visual representations. Ouch! Not to mention the other clusters! This can be tricky and students need a really solid understanding of number and place value concepts first.

Some of my favorite tools for teaching fraction and decimal operations are:
1. The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives Fraction-Rectangle Multiplication which teaches students to break apart an array into fractions along each axis, just like multiplying whole numbers. If the axes are labeled correctly, students can find fractional products really easily!
The application allows you to visually solve proper and improper fractions, as well as test students. They model the algorithm next to each rectangle array.

The only downside is that the application will not allow you to set up a 10 x 10 grid for multiplying decimals. Once students are familiar with the set-up, they could easily use graph paper to model tenths.

2. Decimal Squares
The program worksheets may look out of date, but the representations are timeless! There are different packets of skill practice that help kids build the background knowledge they need to solve decimal operations with models and algorithms.

If you're not able to purchase another program, you can use the idea of modeling spaces on graph paper. Once students can do operations in one place value (.5 + .2; .07 – .03) then they can learn to break apart multiple place values (.25 + .13) with the same operations.

I also found the idea of open arrays to help with modeling. An open array is just rectangles divided into labeled spaces by place value. It allows kids to multiply in smaller pieces and then add them together.

The 4th Grade Bundle was just published last week in my TpT store. The 5th grade Bundle will be available mid-week, once the Quiz Freebie expires.

I will announce each grade level set as it is finished, so please KEEP in TOUCH!
The quizzes will only be free for a few days, and then they will become paid products. You can see the updates on my Facebook page, my Pinterest boards, or here. Just click the “Follow Me” buttons.