Here is a running track marked from 0 to 1 lap, split into ten equal stretches. A runner is halfway around, sitting on the number 0.5. Hands up: is 0.5 nearer the start of the lap or the finish line, and how can you tell just by looking?

Look at the marker on the number line. The whole numbers at the ends are our landmarks for judging where a tenth sits. Count the jumps each time, and read the number aloud together.

Read each number aloud together and notice where it sits relative to the halfway landmark and the whole-number ends.

Today we work through these tenths together on the line: 0.1, then 0.6, then 1.3, and finally 1.9. Read each one aloud first, then a pupil places the marker. Watch how 1.3 and 1.9 sit past the whole-number 1, in the second stretch of the line.

Now the line runs all the way to 3, so there are three stretches to count along, not two.

For each number: read it aloud, say which two whole numbers it sits between, then place the marker and press Check.

We work up through 0.4, 0.7, 1.2, 1.8, 2.3 and 2.9. The last two sit in the third stretch, past the whole number 2.