What do you think of when you hear “decimal notation”?  Does it really mean anything to you? 

What do you think of when you hear “decimal notation”?  Does it really mean anything to you? 

If you knew that the word decimal comes from the Latin word “decima”, which means a tenth part.  Do you think it helps clarify things? Why or why not? 

When I hear the term decimal notation, I automatically think of a number and added to it is a tenth, or hundredth or so on, part next to it. So by saying decimal notation I imagine something like 2.13 for example. And knowing that tenth means decima in Latin and that is the origin of the term, make things clearer for the student.

Decimal notation is when we have a fraction in a form with a point between the numbers. For example ½ is 0.5 in the decimal form. Yes if we know that it is translated as a tenth part, this shows that it is a number plus a tenth part or more that is less than 1 added to it like 1.005. We cannot call it a whole number after putting a decimal.