Greater Than and Less Than

Hey there friends! It's Erin and Leslie over at First Grade Fanatics. We are so excited to get to be guest bloggers for such an amazing blogger! Thanks Anna! We've really been working on greater than and less than with our little firsties, so we thought we'd share some fun stuff with ya'll.

We started over at Super Teacher Worksheets because they have a super cute little alligator that we used to introduce the concept. Isn't he the cutest?

We quickly moved beyond Mr. Alligator to teaching the symbols, but really found that using him did give the kids a great visual to remember which symbol to use.

Here is a worksheet that we used with the alligators, but you could definitely use it for just symbols as well. You can find the black and white little alligators HERE at Super Teacher Worksheets. We didn't love their worksheet, so we made our own. Make sure to grab a copy below.
The Hungry Alligator Worksheet

Next we did an activity with the kids using whiteboards where we came up with 2 numbers that they wrote, and then they picked a card with a symbol to put in the middle. Make sure to click below to get a copy of our signs. They worked really well for the kids!

Greater Than/Less Than/Equal To Signs

We really want our first graders to be familiar with the correct language to use when comparing two numbers. The worksheets below contain boxes for students to write the correct sign in, and phrases to circle.

Greater Than/Less Than/ Equal To Worksheets

We ended the week teaching our kids to play this game.


This was a huge help in reinforcing greater than, less than and equal to.


Each pair of students gets a spinner to create 2-digit numbers. They then record them on their worksheet (they can either share one, or have their own) and include the appropriate symbol. They loved this game! We were so busy though, we forgot to take pictures. Oops! :-)

Here's a copy for you!

Greater Than Less Than Game

Thanks for sticking with us! Do you have any other ideas for teaching this strategy? We'd love to hear from you!
Now we're moving on to place value...

Don't forget to stop on by our blog and say hello. We've got all sorts of fun freebies and printables to share! Have a great day!