Name _________________________
Date _______________
PMI – 5nd Grade
Decimal Computation Unit
Lab – Decimal Subtraction to Zero
Materials: deck of cards (remove jacks, queens, and kings), 1 die,
paper, and pencils
1. Shuffle the cards and place them face down in a pile.
2. Players draw three cards and make a three-digit number. Even
numbers are put in whole numbers. Odd numbers are put in
decimal places.
Example: Player 1 draws 7, 6, and 5 and writes it on her/his paper
as 6.75 or 6.57.
3. Players then draw three more cards and make another three-digit
number using the same rules for odd and even numbers.
Example: Player 1 now draws 2, 8, 1. He/she writes 82.1 or 28.1
4. Players find the difference of their two numbers. (Notice that the
smaller number is being subtracted from the larger number.)
Example: Player 1
82.1
- 6.75
88.85
5. Starting at 500, players subtract number they made. Then, both
players turn over three new cards per turn, and continue to
subtract the number they made from their score.
6. Play continues until one player reaches zero.
NJ Center for Teaching and Learning
www.njctl.org