Adding and Subtracting

Decimals
Kelsey Masserant














Middle School Student Teaching Unit Plan
Adding and Subtracting Decimals
Sixth Grade Mathematics
Kelsey Masserant


Adding and Subtracting Decimals Unit
Table of Contents
Overview
Unit Objective
Content Outline
Theme
Interdisciplinary
Lesson Plans
Meeting Diverse Needs
Materials
Behavior Management
Assessments
Pre-Assessment
Post-Assessment
Assessment Reflection


Kelsey Masserant
Middle School Student Teaching Unit Plan
Overview
Unit Title: Adding and Subtracting Decimals
Theme: This unit focuses on adding and subtracting decimal numbers. Sixth graders need to
use prior knowledge and skills of place value to build up to adding and subtracting numbers
with decimal places. They will also need to apply these concepts to word problems in order to
solve the problem.
Grade Level: Sixth Grade
Content Area: Mathematics (Resource Room)
Rationale: Zeeland Public Schools uses the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) so all of my
lessons are aligned to these standards. The group of students in this math resource room hour
has mandatory IEP goals detailing the skills needed for adding and subtracting decimals. These
goals must be met by the end of their sixth grade year.
Big Ideas: The big ideas of this unit are simply adding and subtracting decimal numbers using
the standard algorithm for each operation. Students will also apply this understanding to
solving word problems dealing with adding and subtracting decimals. They will also use basic
knowledge of decimals, place value, and rounding learned in previous grades.

Unit Objective
The main objective for this unit is that my students will be able to accurately add and subtract
multi-digit numbers in the decimal form.
Common Core State Standards:
Many of the students in this math resource hour still need teaching and re-teaching of concepts
relating to decimals from the CCSS of 5
th
grade math. Therefore, I included those standards in
my unit plan as well.
Understand the place value system
CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.A.1 Recognize that in a multi-digit number, a digit in one place
represents 10 times as much as it represents in the place to its right and 1/10 of what it
represents in the place to its left.
CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.A.4 Use place value understanding to round decimals to any place.
Number & Operations in Base Ten: Perform operations with multi-digit whole numbers and with
decimals to hundredths.
CCSS.Math.Content.5.NBT.B.7: Add, subtract, multiply, and divide decimals to hundredths,
using concrete models or drawings and strategies based on place value, properties of
operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction; relate the strategy to a
written method and explain the reasoning used.
Compute fluently with multi-digit numbers and find common factors and multiples.
CCS.Math.Content.6.NS.B.3 Fluently add, subtract, multiply, and divide multi-digit decimals
using the standard algorithm for each operation.

Content Outline
The daily objectives relating to my unit objective are listed at the top of each lesson under
Learning Target.
The learner will identify the correct place value of a decimal number on a worksheet
with 70% accuracy.
The learner will estimate by rounding decimals to the nearest integer with 80%
accuracy.
The learner will add and subtract decimal numbers on a worksheet with 70% accuracy.
The learner will add and subtract decimal numbers on a worksheet with 80% accuracy.
The learner will add and subtract decimals to the nearest integer with 80% accuracy.
The learner will add and subtract decimals with 80% accuracy.
The learner will add and subtract decimals to the nearest integer with 80% accuracy.
Major concepts of this unit are for the students to understand place values, round decimals to
the nearest integer, and add and subtract decimals accurately. Students will also solve word
problems using addition and subtraction of decimals.

Theme
This unit focuses on adding and subtracting decimal numbers. Sixth graders will need to use
prior knowledge and skills of decimals, place value, and rounding before understanding how to
add and subtract decimals. They will add and subtract multi-digit decimal numbers using
standard algorithms. Lastly, students will apply these concepts to word problems in order to
solve the problem.

Interdisciplinary
This unit incorporated learning in multiple discipline areas outside of the content area of
Mathematics. Students were given story problems that included english language arts, social
studies, and scientific concepts as well as art. Students needed to accurately read the
information, vocabulary, and then answer accordingly. They used many ELA reading
comprehension strategies including circling important information, highlighting key words, and
annotating the text at times. In multiple story problems students had to use social studies and
scientific concepts and ideas. For instance, students had to compare weights of items on a
scale, times in a swimming race, economic ideas- supply and demand, and use real life
customer applications. Lastly, the students occasionally drew pictures to aide them in solving
the word problems.


Meeting Diverse Needs
I accounted for the needs of diverse learners in many different ways throughout this unit.
Although there were only nine students in the class, this was still difficult because of the high
needs of this population of special education students. The course itself is designed to target
these students more in a small group setting and I accommodated them accordingly. In my
lessons I taught with a variety of activities that used different multiple intelligences. Students
were able to read, write, listen, create, verbalize, move, watch, and be creative in different
ways and in different groups throughout the unit. This accounts for auditory, kinesthetic,
linguistic, visual, and interpersonal learners. I included a variety of types of questions from
Blooms Taxonomy, especially higher level thinking ones to challenge students. In addition, the
questions that students answered were formatted differently in the beginning of the lessons
each day, during the lesson on worksheets and orally, on homework assignments, and on the
test at the end of the unit.

Materials
Elmo
Pencils
iPads
Projector
Scrap paper
Whiteboards
Whiteboard markers
Erasers
Homework worksheets
Laminated game boards
Game pieces (BINGO plastic chips)

Behavior Management
At the beginning of each lesson I remind students of our classroom behavior management
policies. I expect that the students will have their iPads turned off before class begins and they will not
use them unless directed to. If a student is using an iPad inappropriately as explained by the new iPad
policies, I will write the name on a slip and he/she will take it home for his/her parents to sign and bring
back to school. Students will all sit in their assigned seats at the tables and need to raise their hands if
they have a question or want to share. I only call on students who are raising their hand and in a
proper listening position. If there is continued blurting- I will ask them the set of questions for SRC,
including what are you doing, and what are the rules of the classroom? The first time is a warning, the
second time they will be sent down to the SRC. Students are also expected to clean up their area at the
end of each period and make sure all materials are put away in the proper location. Lastly, students
may lose daily points in the resource hour if they are not demonstrating acceptable behavior.

Assessments
Depending on what was being taught in the individual lessons, my methods for assessing the
daily objectives changed. At the end of each lesson plan I always state how I am assessing the
learners in the independent practice or the evaluation section. I used a lot of informal
observations during whole class instruction since there were only nine students in the class it
was a little easier to monitor. The whiteboards made assessment easier because I could see
right away who understood the information and who didnt. I was flexible with my lessons and
could give extra practice problems, or move faster depending on what the students needed. I
also walked around and monitored student discussions and made observation notes. I
evaluated class work and homework when they turned in assignments for a grade. I used a
quick pre-assessment prior to the new unit as well as two post-assessments.

Pre-Assessment
The pre-assessment for this decimal unit on adding and subtracting was a three problem quiz
given on the first day of the unit. Students received no help from others and simply solved the
problems on a scratch sheet of paper. The pre-test problems were formatted the same exact
way that the problems were written on the unit test. Only three students answered at least
one of the problems correctly all the way through. A few others had the right ideas, but made
minor mistakes giving them an incorrect answer.

Post-Assessment
The final summative assessment for this unit on adding and subtracting decimals was a test that
I created for the nine resource room students in my class. The test was a total of 22 questions
including 20 adding or subtracting decimals including negative decimals and two story
problems. The format of the test was very similar to the in class activities and homework that
the students had previously completed throughout the unit. Knowing our population of
students and their study habits, I decided to review the day of the test for 10-15 minutes early
in the hour. The students had a high level of understanding the previous couple of days and did
well in the review so I thought they were ready for the test. Only three students passed the
test the first time. Most students had made minor mistakes or what I would call silly errors
so the next day we passed the tests back and then reviewed as a whole class. Students were
re-tested and only one student did not pass the second time. The test scores for each student
were averaged together for the final grade of the post assessment in the gradebook.