Adding Decimals Worksheets

Give the page after a lesson on lining up place values. Nothing needs copying: the problems are already stacked, so students can start adding right away. Allow fifteen minutes for 20 problems. Use the answer key to check the whole column, and ask students to find any sum where the decimal point landed in the wrong place. Pair it with a few real prices to connect it to money.

Decimals add exactly like whole numbers once the points are aligned, and the carrying moves from the hundredths to the tenths and across the point into the ones. Children get stuck when they forget to bring the point straight down, or when a sum crosses to the next whole number. This follows reading decimals and place value, and it leads to subtracting decimals and to ragged problems like 3.5 + 2.75.

Decimal places is the control to adjust: 1 for a first lesson, 2 for money-style problems, 3 for measurements and stronger students. The page opens on 2. Choose 12 problems for careful work and 30 for fluency. Remind students that trailing zeros keep the places visible, so 16.50 helps them check each column.

Where should the decimal point go in the answer?

Directly below the points in the problem, in a straight vertical line. Draw that line first, before adding anything, and the answer's point will not drift.

Why does the answer key show 16.50 and not 16.5?

The extra zero keeps the hundredths column visible so a student can check it. Both forms are the same number, so a child who writes 16.5 is still correct.

What if a sum goes past the next whole number?

That is regrouping across the point. Carry from tenths into ones just as you carry from ones into tens. It trips up many students, so work one example together before they start.