Greater than, Less than and Equal to

Greater than and Less than

Using Symbols to Compare Numbers

• Greater Than

• Less Tha

Symbols

Here we have the symbols:

Greater than (>)

Less than (<)

We will be using these symbols to compare numbers.

Here we have two groups of triangles, we need to compare these groups of triangles.

 $\nabla\nabla\nabla\nabla\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \nabla\nabla\nabla\nabla\nabla$  

      4                                   5

The first thing we need to do is to count how many in each group. We start on the left and we can see that there are 4 triangles, and on the right side we have 5 triangles.

We need to use one of the three symbols to compare these two groups.

Let us think of this symbol > as a big mouth that is always hungry. It wants to eat the biggest amount, so the open side should always face towards the bigger number.

Ok, we have 4 on the left and 5 on the right, the symbol mouth will open to the larger number. Which number is larger?

The 5 is larger so the mouth opens to the 5.

If we were to read this, we would say 4 is less than 5.

Are you ready now to answer another problem in comparing numbers?

Let's go and play!!!