Fifth-grade students construct decimal number through measurement activities

International audienceIn this study, a teaching experiment was used in which fifth grade students developed their own knowledge about decimal number based on their prior knowledge and real life actual experiments. A Realistic Mathematics Education approach was used for designing this research. Participants in this study were 27 students from a primary school and they did not have formal instruction at school on decimal number until participating in the current study. These students engaged in some measuring activities during four sessions in two weekends. They discovered the idea of calibration of a measurement unit and tried to use this idea for measuring the length of objects. This study shows how real life experiments of students help them to calibration a measurement unit