Year 5 Understand tenths as part of a whole, represent and calculate mentally worksheet

“Tenths of a whole” is free to print, with no account. It is the first sheet in the Year 5 maths unit “Understand tenths as part of a whole, represent and calculate mentally”, for children aged 9 to 10, and takes about 20 minutes.

Print it on A4. The child's pages come first; the answers, and what each wrong answer tells you, are on the grown-up page that follows. Week 1 of the year, 5 sheets in the unit.

Free sample · answers on the last page

Tenths of a whole

Name: ____________ · Date: ____________
Year 5 · Maths · about 20 minutes
Answers are on the grown-up page

Today I can name a tenth as one of ten equal parts of a whole.

A Look back3 min

1.
A bar is split into 4 equal parts. How many of the 4 equal parts are shaded?
2.
Half of 10 is
3.
Ten groups of 2 make

B Watch me, then you4 min

A bar is split into 10 equal parts. Some parts are coloured in. Read the bar and write the fraction.

Watch me

The whole is split into 10 equal parts.

3 of the equal parts are shaded.

So 3 parts out of 10 are shaded: 3 tenths, or 3/10.

Now you

1.
A bar is split into 10 equal parts. How many tenths are shaded?

C Your turn6 min

1.
How many tenths are shaded?
2.
How many tenths are shaded?
3.
How many tenths are shaded?
4.
How many tenths are NOT shaded?

Say it out loud: When the shaded parts move to a new place, what stays the same? What changes?

D Spot the mistake3 min

Kit says: “This shape has ten plain parts and one shaded part, so the shaded part is one tenth.”

1.
How many equal parts is the whole split into?

E Think deeper4 min

Ali cuts a 10 cm ribbon into pieces of 1 cm, 2 cm, 3 cm and 4 cm. Ali says each piece is one tenth.

1.
Is Ali right? Explain how you know.

How did it feel?

I can do it Nearly Not yet

For the grown-up

Tenths of a whole · 2 minutes to read

Answers, and what a wrong one tells you

A

1. 1

2. 5

3. 20

B

1. 7 If your child says 3, they may have counted the plain parts by mistake. Ask them to count only the coloured parts.

C

1. 2 If your child says 8, they have counted the plain parts. Ask which parts are coloured in.

2. 5

3. 5

4. 6 If your child says 4, they have counted the shaded parts. Ask them to count the plain parts that are left.

D

1. 11. Kit counted only the plain parts, but the shaded part is one of the equal parts too. If your child says 10, they counted only the plain parts. The shaded part is one of the equal parts too. Count all of them.

E

1. Look for: No. Tenths are ten equal parts and these pieces are different lengths. Also accept: only the 1 cm piece is a tenth, or there are only 4 pieces, not 10.

Words to use

Say“Before you count the shaded parts, how many equal parts is the whole split into?”

Instead of“Just tell them the answer is wrong and show them the right one.”

After the sheet

Draw a rectangle, split it into ten equal strips with a ruler, then shade some strips and say the fraction out loud.

Tick what your child got right in StudyDen. Anything missed comes back in a later Look back box, so there's no need to redo the sheet.

The rest of this unit

4 more sheets come with a StudyDen plan, in teaching order:

Tenths and the decimal point(with a plan)
Counting in Tenths(with a plan)
Wholes into tenths(with a plan)
Comparing tenths(with a plan)

Every Year 5 maths worksheet

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