Greater than or equal?

A lesson on math language

Language

Math is an universal language

Instead of words, we use numbers and symbols to represent what we are trying to say!

Greater than (>) and Less than (<)

These symbols are used when you are comparing which number is the bigger or smaller one of the two

BIG > small“BIG is greater than small”

small < BIG“small is less than Big”

So how do you remember?

The signs < and > kind of look like little mouths!

If you think about it really carefully, doesn’t it kind of look like an alligator mouth?

An alligator will want to naturally eat something that looks bigger than smaller

So the mouth will be facing the bigger number!

OR IT’S AN ALLIGATOR!!!

Let’s practice!

Translate what these mathematic phrases say!

5 > 3 9 < 14

18 < 50 12 > 3

….Or Equal to

Sometimes you know that a value is smaller,

but may also be equal to!

To show this, we add an extra line at the bottom of the “less than” or “greater than” symbol like this:

Now that you know all the signs, choose what completes the math statement

3 __ 9 4 __ 6

2 __ 7 9 __ 2

18 __ 12 40 __ 10